T R A N S N AT I O N A L I N S T I T U T E

B u r m a C e n t e r N e t h e r l a n d s

Burma’s Longest War

Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
Ashley South

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Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Author
Ashley South

Copy Editor
Nick Buxton

Design
Guido Jelsma, www.guidojelsma.nl

Photo credits
Hans van den Bogaard (HvdB)
Tom Kramer (TK)
Free Burma Rangers (FBR).

Cover Photo
Karen Don Dance (TK)

Printing
Drukkerij PrimaveraQuint
Amsterdam

Contact
Transnational Institute (TNI)
PO Box 14656, 1001 LD Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-6626608
Fax: +31-20-6757176
e-mail: burma@tni.org
www.tni.org/work-area/burma-project

Burma Center Netherlands (BCN)

PO Box 14563, 1001 LB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-671 6952
Fax: +31-20-6713513
e-mail: info@burmacentrum.nl
www.burmacentrum.nl

Ashley South is an independent writer and consultant,

specialising in political issues in Burma/Myanmar and
Southeast Asia [www.ashleysouth.co.uk].

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank all those who helped
with the research, and commented on various drafts of
the report. Thanks to Martin Smith, Tom Kramer, Alan
Smith, David Eubank, Amy Galetzka, Monique Skidmore,
Hazel Laing, Mandy Sadan, Matt Finch, Nils Carstensen,
Mary Callahan, Ardeth Thawnghmung, Richard Horsey,
Zunetta Liddell, Marie Lall, Paul Keenan and Miles Jury,
and to many people in and from Burma, who cannot be
acknowledged for security reasons. Thanks as ever to
Bellay Htoo and the boys for their love and support.

Amsterdam, March 2011

4
Contents

Executive Summary 2 Humanitarian Issues 30

MAP 1: Burma – States and Regions 3 Humanitarian Assistance in Southeast Burma 30
Recommendations 5 The Refugee Regime 31
Aid, Legitimacy and Conflict 32
Introduction 6
Contested Legitimacies 34
The Karen Conflict 8 The Politics of Legitimacy 34
MAP 2: Karen State 9 The Romance of ‘Zomia’ 35
Population and Governance 10 Beyond the Mainstream 37
MAP 3: Main Karen Armed Groups 11 The Reorientation of Karen Armed Networks 38
Longevity and Consolidation of Military Rule 12
Ceasefire Groups and Border Guard Forces 13 Karen Politics in a Time of Change 40
The Border Guard Forces and their Discontents 42
Karen Armed Groups 14 A Commission of Inquiry? 42
TABLE 1: Karen Armed Groups 14 The Aung San Suu Kyi Factor 45
The Karen National Union 15 Future Prospects 45
KNU Ceasefire Negotiations 16
Alliance Politics 17 Conclusions 48
The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army 18
The Role of Thailand 20 Notes 49
Economics and Infrastructure Development 20
MAP 4: Economic and Infrastructure Development 21 Abbreviations 53
Guns and Governance - Political Economy and Political 22
Cultures Other TNI-BCN Publications on Burma 53
Greed and Grievance 23
Forms of Political Authority 23

Karen Civil and Political Society 24

‘Inside Myanmar’
Karen Civil Society in Burma 25
Religious ‘Mandalas’ 26
The 2010 Elections 27
TABLE 2: Karen Political Parties Contesting 29
the 2010 Election

1
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Executive Summary

The number of Karen people in Burma (or Myanmar,

as the country is officially called) is unknown, with esti-
mates varying between three and seven million, speaking
a dozen related, but mutually non-intelligible, dialects. The
majority of Karen people are Buddhists, with perhaps 20%
Christians, and small numbers of animists who live mostly
in remote areas. There is also a small minority of ‘Karen
Muslims’.

Despite this diversity, many Western observers view the

Karen as a more-or-less exclusively Christian people. Simi-
larly, although the majority of Karen people live beyond
zones of armed conflict - mostly in areas which have been
controlled by the government for decades - political ac-
tivists often regard ‘the Karen’ as a whole as in rebellion
against the government. This is to ignore the lives and po-
sitions of a majority of Karen people, who are not aligned
with opposition groups, and who - although they may be
deeply critical of the military government - do not sub-
scribe to armed groups’ militant objectives. Even for those
living in militarised contexts, significant numbers are ori-
ented towards armed networks aligned with the govern-
ment, rather than with the long-standing Karen National
Union (KNU) insurgency.

The KNU does enjoy strong support from elements of the

Karen population, particularly Christian communities,
who are more likely to have contacts with international
patrons. Therefore most external analyses regarding the
political situation, armed conflict and its humanitarian im-
pacts in Karen areas derive from the perspective of the an-
ti-government KNU and affiliated organisations. The KNU
is perceived by many international observers and actors to
be the sole legitimate political representative of the Karen
nationalist community in Burma. However, after 60 years
of armed conflict, the organisation is facing serious politi-
cal and military challenges. It has lost control of most of
its once extensive ‘liberated zones’ and has lost touch with
most non-Christian Karen communities. Already greatly
weakened militarily, the KNU could be ejected from its
last strongholds, should the Burma Army (known as the
Tatmadaw in Burmese) launch another major offensive.

Many Karen-populated areas have been subject to (mostly

low-level) insurgency and often brutal government coun-
ter-insurgency operations since 1949, the year after Bur-
ma’s independence. The humanitarian impacts on civilian
populations have been immense. Thailand-Burma border
areas saw an upsurge in fighting following elections in No-
vember 2010. The announcement in February 2011 of a
new military alliance between the KNU and several other
armed ethnic groups, including three that (at the time of
writing) have ceasefires with the government, may pres-
age a new phase of armed conflict in the border areas, at
least in the short-to-middle term. However, the long-term

2
 Executive Summary

Map1 - Burma – States and Regions

3
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
prognosis for armed conflict in Burma is one of a decline
of insurgency.
Other countries in mainland Southeast Asia have long ago
emerged from the armed conflicts which characterised the
Cold War period, and regional economies are booming.
The challenge facing Burma’s military and political lead-
ers, including the new government and opposition groups,
is whether to respond positively to the changing political
and economic context, or to remain stuck in the confron-
tational politics of the past. In re-committing to an armed
conflict in which government forces have a decisive upper
hand, the KNU risks becoming further marginalised, mili-
tarily, politically and economically.
While the KNU remains a key stakeholder, a comprehen-
sive analysis of the situation in Karen-populated areas
should take account of other organisations. These include
a range of non-state armed groups, not all of which ascribe
to the liberal-democratic values with which Western ob-
servers are most comfortable. Another important set of
Karen actors consists of a range of community-based or-
ganisations (CBOs) and local non-government organisa-
tions (NGOs), including Buddhist and Christian networks.
These include various groups operating in government and
ceasefire group-controlled areas, as well as those working
among refugee populations, and in cross-border regions
from Thailand, in zones of ongoing conflict. The latter tend
to be better known due to their access to international do-
nors and media outlets. In contrast, groups and networks
not affiliated with the KNU or wider Burmese opposition
organisations tend to enjoy limited access to international
support networks.
Under pressure from the military government, during
2009 to 2010 the most significant non-KNU armed Karen
groups, including most elements of the Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army (DKBA), were transformed into Border
Guard Forces (BGFs) under direct Tatmadaw control. Al-
though their autonomy and ability to articulate and pro-
mote a distinct Karen ethnic nationalist agenda has been
undermined by such developments, non-KNU armed fac-
tions nevertheless remain significant military, political and
economic players on the ground. However, international
engagement with such groups remains problematic, as they
act as proxies for the Tatmadaw and demonstrate limited
interest in supposedly universal norms of conduct in the
human rights field. Most also have unclear political agen-
das, often focusing primarily on economic issues.
It is yet to be seen whether the November 2010 election will
introduce significant new kinds of governance in southeast
Burma. The political space available to the small number
of Karen and other independent candidates elected is lim-
ited and, in the future, will depend on the will of senior
Burmese military officials, who have dominated the coun-
try since the 1962 military coup. The degree to which the
generals are willing to tolerate some independent political
4
space in Karen and other ethnic nationality-populated areas
will be largely determined by whether the military is able
to control the domestic political agenda, including, above
all, being able to contain Aung San Suu Kyi, and popular
aspirations for change. It is possible that members of the
three Karen political parties elected in November may gain
some influence over the formulation of humanitarian and
development policies affecting their communities. Devel-
oping supportive relations with civilian politicians elected
in 2010 will be an important task for those who seek to
engage positively with Burma. However, those seeking to
develop relations with state officials must anticipate some
criticism on the part of exiled Burmese politicians and
their support networks, and also take account of the Bur-
mese military’s political sensitivities.
Another key challenge will be how to support the civil so-
ciety sector, whose re-emergence in the past decade-and-
a-half has been one of the few positive aspects in an other-
wise bleak political scene. Successes in local development
activities on the part of Karen and other civil society actors
have helped to build social capital, and promote local resil-
ience and trust, providing limited amounts of protection
to hard-pressed civilian populations. Ultimately however,
in the age of globalisation, more influential than the civil
society and aid sectors will be the role of capital and busi-
ness more generally. The recent announcement of a multi-
billion dollar deep-sea port and industrial project at Dawei
on Burma’s southern seaboard, together with several pro-
posed ‘special economic zones’ in the border areas, indi-
cate that Thai, Chinese and other regional economic ac-
tors have serious interests in promoting the stabilisation of
southeast Burma. There is a pressing need for Karen social
and political actors to demonstrate their relevance to the
new political and economic agendas playing out in Burma,
and in particular to articulate positions regarding major
economic and infrastructure development projects.
Historically, external support for the Karen nationalist
movement has included the activities of missionaries and
Cold War security interests. More recently, the KNU has
received material assistance and legitimisation through
support for refugees living in camps along the Thailand-
Burma border. An important factor in understanding this
international support is the correlation between the rights-
based promotion of liberal-democracy adopted by West-
ern aid agencies and donors, and the values espoused by
the KNU, which seeks legitimacy through appeals to inter-
national norms. In the humanitarian spirit of the ‘Do No
Harm’ doctrine, aid agencies and donors should analyse
the relationship between their assistance and advocacy ac-
tivities and the dynamics of conflict in Burma. They should
understand that, by supporting the refugee camps in Thai-
land, they are helping to underwrite the KNU’s ability to
continue waging armed conflict in Burma. The camps pro-
vide refuge to KNU members and their families and are a
source of limited material support to the insurgents; and
implicitly legitimise the KNU’s struggle. This may - or may

not – be an appropriate use of assistance. As in other zones
of conflict in the world, aid agencies and donors need to
be honest about their relationships with armed non-state
groups. Only then can they judge whether the humanitar-
ian imperative of supporting displaced people in and from
Burma outweighs the risks of contributing to the political
economy of armed conflict.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the government
- Act in good faith to resolve conflicts peacefully between
the military-backed government and armed non-state
groups. Endeavour to maintain ceasefires agreed previ-
ously with Karen and other armed ethnic groups.
- Support Border Guard Force and other ceasefire groups
to provide humanitarian and development assistance in
areas under their influence, and to improve their gov-
ernance capacities and accountability to local popula-
tions.
- Allow local communities and elected Karen representa-
tives to participate to the fullest extent possible in gover-
nance and development activities, including in relation
to infrastructure and economic development projects.
- Work with local and international organisations, to im-
prove humanitarian access to, and development condi-
tions in, Karen-populated areas.
To the KNU and other armed non-state actors
- The KNU should do more to engage with non-Christian
Karen communities, especially Buddhists and Pwo-
speakers, beyond the borderlands.
- The KNU should assess its continued support for ex-
iled opposition alliances, seeking instead to engage
more with Karen and other progressive forces inside the
country.
- Karen armed groups should clearly identify their long-
term visions for political and social development, and
assess their continued commitment to armed conflict
- Karen armed groups should seek support to develop
their governance capacities and provide the space within
which local and international agencies can implement
humanitarian and community development activities.
- Karen armed and political groups should demonstrate
to the international community - and particularly to the
private corporate sector - that they can play constructive
roles in relation to major infrastructure and economic
development projects in southeast Burma. They should
seek to engage with companies involved in infrastruc-
ture development projects, to promote corporate social
responsibility and environmental sustainability.
- Karen armed groups should continue to seek mutual
understanding, starting at local levels. Rather than any
one organisation seeking to dominate this diverse com-
munity, Karen leaders should seek to form coalitions
of common interest and intra-community cooperation
(consociational democracy).
Executive Summary
To Karen civil society actors
- Endeavour to better coordinate assistance and develop-
ment activities, conducted cross-border from Thailand
and by groups working inside the country. While tak-
ing advantage of international facilitation, local actors
should ensure that they retain ownership of such pro-
cesses.
- Develop positions and policies in relation to infrastruc-
ture and economic development projects in southeast
Burma.
To the international community
- In addition to addressing the ‘democratic deficit’ and
widespread human rights abuses in Burma, prioritise
the issues which have structured half-a-century of eth-
nic conflict. Avoid reproducing simplistic assumptions
regarding the nature of conflict in Burma, and attempt
to engage with a wide range of actors, including cease-
fire groups, civil society and political leaders inside the
country, as well as those in the borderlands and exile.
- While continuing to provide support for border-based
humanitarian activities, provide greater funding and
capacity building assistance to initiatives undertaken
by local and international actors inside Burma. In do-
ing so, international organisations and donors should
be careful not to inadvertently harm vulnerable local
networks.
- The United Nations should continue to use its ‘good of-
fices’ to promote conflict resolution and national recon-
ciliation in Burma, as opportunities arise.
- International organisations should carefully observe
political developments in Burma following the 2010
elections, assessing opportunities to engage construc-
tively with new political structures, particularly at the
local level.
To humanitarian actors
- Humanitarian support to highly vulnerable civilian
communities, provided in and from Thailand, should be
continued, complemented by increased assistance and
capacity building provided through international and
local agencies working inside the country.
- Pay careful attention to the relationship between aid and
conflict in Burma, in terms of the material support and
legitimisation which assistance can lend to armed and
political groups. Undertake assessments of the range of
stakeholders in Karen-populated areas, and try to avoid
working with just one set of actors.
5
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Introduction

The ongoing armed conflict in Burma constitutes the lon-

gest-running civil war in the world. Many Karen-populated
parts of the country were devastated by the Second World
War and have been affected by armed conflict since 1949,
the year after independence. Although Karen communities
living in the Irrawaddy Delta, lowland areas of Yangon and
Bago Regions and the Mon and Karen States have not ex-
perienced direct fighting in many years, those living in the
mountainous areas bordering Thailand continue to be sub-
ject to ongoing armed conflict. Even in those areas where
insurgency1 and counter-insurgency operations have come
to an end, communities remain vulnerable to a range of
threats, including various forms of violence and deep-seat-
ed poverty.

Home to more than 100 ethno-linguistic groups, since in-

dependence the country has been subject to conflict be-
tween the central government and a range of armed ethnic
and political groups. Conflict in Burma is orientated along
two main axes: a predominantly urban-based movement
struggling to achieve greater accountability and democ-
racy in a state dominated by a military government since
the 1950s; and an overlapping set of conflicts between a
centralised state and representatives of ethnic minority
communities, which make up approximately 30% of the
population. This report focuses in particular on armed
conflict-affected parts of the country populated by mem-
bers of Karen-speaking ethno-linguistic groups.

Terminology

• Burma/Myanmar: In 1989 the then SLORC (State Law

and Order Restoration Council) military junta renamed
the country ‘Myanmar Naing-ngan’. Several other place
names were changed at the same time. Some new spell-
ings have become common in English (e.g. Bago),
whereas others (e.g. Mawlamyine) have not.2 This report
follows the more traditional usage of ‘Burma’. However,
‘Yangon’ is preferred to ‘Rangoon’.

• Karen/Kayin: In 1989 the government officially re-

designated the name of the Karen ethnic community us-
ing the Burmese language exonym ‘Kayin’. Thus Karen
State became Kayin State.

• Burman/Burmese/Bama: ‘Burman’ (or in the Burmese

language Bama) designates members of the majority
population; Burmese is a more general adjective for all
citizens, the majority language and the country.

• Minority/nationality: Elites within Burma’s ethnic

communities generally prefer the term ‘nationality’,
which is considered to confer more political status and
legitimacy.3

6
 Small shop in Karen refugee camp (TK)

7
Introduction
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

The Karen Conflict

The Karen nationalist movement in Burma can be dated

to the late 19th century, with the formation in 1881 of the
Karen National Association.4 Early Karen nationalists were
influenced in particular by the American Baptist Mission.
Through provision of Christian education, a pan-Karen
national identity emerged and was developed during the
first half of the 20th century. Burman nationalists regarded
elites within the Karen minority as favoured by the colo-
nial administration, laying the seeds for conflict during the
Second World War and the post-independence period.

The Karen National Union was established one year before

independence, in February 1947.5 Having failed to reach
a political agreement with the newly independent govern-
ment, the KNU went underground on 31 January 1949 at
the battle of Insein; this date has since been celebrated by
the KNU as ‘revolution day’. While some observers have
accused the KNU leadership at that time of being overly
ambitious in its territorial and political claims on the cen-
tral government, others have emphasised the grievances
felt by Karen communities as a result of abuses perpetrated
by predominantly Burman militias during World War II
and afterwards, and the strongly-held nature of Karen as-
pirations for national self-determination.

For much of the next half century, the KNU operated as

a de facto government, controlling large swathes of ter-
ritory across Karen State, and adjacent parts of the Bago
Yoma highlands and Irrawaddy Delta, where many Karens
live. After some early successes however, from the early
1950s the KNU was fighting a protracted rearguard opera-
tion. By the 1990s, it had lost control of most of its once-
extensive ‘liberated zones’, although the organisation still
exerted varying degrees of influence over areas contested
with government forces and proxy militias. The decline
of the KNU was exacerbated by the defection in late 1994
of several hundred battle-hardened soldiers, who estab-
lished the government-allied Democratic Karen Buddhist
Army (DKBA) and shortly afterwards overran the KNU’s
long-standing headquarters at Manerplaw. This was a huge
setback to both the KNU and the loose alliances of pro-
democracy organisations it sheltered along the Thailand
border (see below).

The DKBA was established in protest against the Christian

domination of the KNU under its long-term strongman
Gen. Bo Mya, who died in 2006. The KNU’s problems were
exacerbated by the assassination on 14 February 2008 of its
General Secretary, P’doh Mahn Sha, who had played a key
role in political relations and shoring-up the organisation,
during a period of decline.

In a 2009 interview KNU Central Executive Committee

member Saw David Taw estimated that the Karen National
Liberation Army (KNLA, the KNU’s armed wing) fielded

8
 KNU district names and demarcations Goverment township names and demarcations Map 2 - Karen State

9
The Karen Conflict
 Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
KNLA soldier (TK)
not more than 3000 soldiers in total.6 Within a few years
of its 1994 formation, the DKBA had overtaken the KNU/
KNLA as the militarily and economically most powerful
Karen non-state actor. Whereas, in previous years, the
KNU had been strong enough to demand at least symbolic
loyalty from locally-based field commanders, the collapse
of the organisation’s fortunes in the 1990s led to a signifi-
cant decline in the KNU’s authority and the reorientation
of Karen armed groups – most of them breakaway factions
from the KNU - towards the military government and its
networks of control. Other ex-KNU/KNLA armed factions
included the Karen Peace Force (KPF, established 1997),
the ‘P’doh Aung San Group’ (formed 1998, by the defec-
tion of the influential KNU forestry minister), the KNU-
KNLA Peace Council (2007), and a small ceasefire group in
Toungoo District, northern Karen State (1998), as well as
various local militias. Several of these groups have recently
been disbanded or transformed as a result of the govern-
ment’s Border Guard Force (BGF) initiative (see Table 1).
By the mid-1990s, as a result of decades of armed conflict,
tens of thousands of mostly ethnic Karen refugees were liv-
ing in several small camps spread out along the Thailand-
Burma border. In addition, an unknown but significantly
larger number of Karen and other civilians were internally
displaced in Burma, and about two million Burmese mi-
grant workers (many of them Karen) were living a pre-
carious existence in Thailand with a very uncertain legal
status.
10
Population and Governance
Since independence, successive central governments have
underestimated the size of non-Burman communities, and
the breakdown of population by ethnicity remains highly
contested. Official demographic figures and indicators are
particularly flawed in relation to border areas, some of
which are still inaccessible to the government and interna-
tional agencies. The 1983 census records 69% of the popu-
lation as belonging to the majority Burman (Bama) group,
8.5% as Shan (including various sub-nationalities), 6.2% as
Karen, 4.5% as Rakhine, 2.4% as Mon, 2.2% as Chin, 1.4%
as Kachin, and 1% as Wa.7
Karen dialects occupy the Tibeto-Burman branch of Si-
no-Tibetan languages. There are some 12 Karen language
dialects, of which the majority speak Sgaw (particularly
in hill areas and among Christian communities) and Pwo
(especially in the lowlands and among Buddhist commu-
nities). The size of the Karen population is unknown, no
reliable census having been undertaken since the colonial
period. As Martin Smith notes,8 “Karen population statis-
tics are disputed; rebel leaders’ estimates are over 7 million
Karens in modern-day Burma, but government figures are
less than half that number.” In 1986 the KNU estimated
the Karen population in Burma at 7 million.9 Many com-
mentators emphasise the Christian identity of the Karen.10
However, not more than 20% of the Karen population are
Christians.11 There are also some small populations of ‘Kar-
en Muslims’.12
Under the 2008 constitution, the country is demarcated
administratively into seven predominantly ethnic nation-
ality-populated States and seven Burman-majority Re-
gions. The government divides the Kayin (Karen) State
into seven townships: Hpa’an, Kawkareik, Kyain Seikkyi,
Myawaddy, Papun, Thandaung and Hlaingbwe. The KNU
meanwhile has organized the Karen free state of Kawthoo-
lei13 into seven districts, each of which corresponds to a
KNLA brigade area14: First Brigade (Thaton), Second Bri-
gade (Toungoo), Third Brigade (Nyaunglebin), Fourth Bri-
gade (Mergui-Tavoy [Dawei] in Tenasserim Region), Fifth
Brigade (Papun), Sixth Brigade (Duplaya) and Seventh
Brigade (Pa’an). Each KNU district is divided into town-
ships (28 in total), and thence into village tracts (groups of
villages administered as a unit by the KNU). These do not
correspond with the central governments’ administrative
divisions.
Only a minority of the Karen population live within the
borders of the modern-day Karen State, which was es-
tablished in 1952. The majority live scattered through the
Yangon, Irrawaddy and Tenasserim Regions, eastern Bago
Region and the Mon State. Although many of these com-
munities identify themselves as Karens, for most people
the tough reality of day-to-day survival is the main prior-
ity, with issues of political affiliation being secondary con-
siderations.
 The Karen Conflict

Map 3 - Main Karen Armed Groups

11
Karen villager in the ashes of her house, burned down by Burma Army (FBR) Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
In practice, in many Karen-inhabited areas of Burma, apart
from borderland areas, it has been over three decades since
the KNU exercised a regular presence. In contrast, con-
flict-affected parts of southeast Burma continue to be sub-
ject to multiple authorities. Although this report refers to
insurgent-controlled, government-controlled and ceasefire
group-controlled or influenced areas, the situation on the
ground is rarely so clearly demarcated. In reality, areas of
disputed authority and influence blur into each other, with
frontiers shifting over time in accordance with the sea-
son and the dynamics of armed and state-society conflict.
Reflecting these realities, many Karen villages have both
a ‘KNU headman’ and a ‘government headman’, and also
often a village leader accountable to another armed faction.
These complexities of governance reflect the changing and
complicated nature of conflict in southeast Burma and the
variety of armed non-state actors.
Longevity and Consolidation of Military Rule
Since the 1960s,15 military operations by the central gov-
ernment have been characterised by counter-insurgency
campaigns that have targeted civilian populations in an ef-
fort to defeat the diverse insurgencies. Numerous reports
testify to the systematic and brutal nature of state counter-
insurgency policies that were first introduced against KNU
and other insurgent groups in lower Burma before being
targeted against militant forces in the borderlands.16
Introduced in the late 1960s and continuing today, the
‘Four Cuts’ strategy17 is designed to transform rebel-held
(or ‘black’) areas into zones actively contested between
government forces and insurgents (‘brown’ areas), and
12
then into firmly government-controlled zones (‘white’ ar-
eas). This is an effective military strategy, which uses ‘free
fire zones’ to undermine the operational capacities of in-
surgent forces, facilitating state penetration of previously
semi-autonomous areas. A popular Karen saying has it that
the undeclared ‘fifth cut’ is to decapitate the insurgents.
Since the late 1990s, Tatmadaw (Burma Army) battalions
in the field have been required to be more-or-less self-suffi-
cient in rice and other basic supplies. Tatmadaw units have
often achieved these objectives by appropriating resources,
including land upon which to grow crops and civilian la-
bour from local populations. This self-support (or ‘living
off the land’) policy has exacerbated conflict and displace-
ment across much of rural Burma.18
In 1997 the SLORC reorganised itself as the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC). The military junta contin-
ued to dominate state, society and the economy under the
leadership of Senior General Than Shwe with significant
power and influence shared by the Military Intelligence
chief (and during 2003-04 Prime Minister), Gen. Khin
Nyunt. A master-strategist and moderniser (although by
no means a democrat), from 1989 Khin Nyunt oversaw the
agreement of a series of ceasefires between armed ethnic
groups and the government (see below). Most Burma-
watchers were taken by surprise, when Khin Nyunt and
most of his circle were purged from office in October 2004,
in a move which demonstrated Than Shwe’s consolida-
tion of power. The ascendancy of Than Shwe was further
demonstrated by his unilateral decision in November 2005
to move the national capital away from Yangon to a new
location in the centre of the country at Nay Pyi Taw. The
promulgation of the 2008 constitution, the November 2010
 The Karen Conflict

election and 2011 formation of a new government can all had negotiated ceasefires transform themselves into Bor-
be seen as part of Than Shwe’s strategy to ensure regime der Guard Forces. These formations would be under the di-
stability and his family’s security as he enters his late 70s. rect control of Tatmadaw commanders, and would be paid
by the Burma Army. Of the 326 personnel in a BGF battal-
This strategy has been largely successful, despite some se- ion, 30 would be drawn from the Tatmadaw, including the
rious challenges to military rule. These have included the deputy commander and quartermaster. Several of the less
August-September 2007 ‘saffron revolution’, led by monks militarily powerful ceasefire groups accepted transforma-
and joined by many ordinary citizens, which the govern- tion into BGF formations. In general, these were groups
ment suppressed by force. In May the following year, parts that only enjoyed limited territorial autonomy, and where
of the Irrawaddy Delta were devastated by Cyclone Nargis, there was front-line overlap between ceasefire and govern-
which killed at least 130,000 people. The government was ment forces in the field. However most of the larger groups
widely criticised for its failure to respond effectively to this resisted, including the UWSA, KIO, NMSP and a break-
unprecedented natural disaster. However, one result of the away DKBA faction.20
regime’s initial refusal to allow access to international aid
agencies was that space was created for ordinary citizens
and local NGOs to demonstrate the capacity of civil so-
ciety in Burma in responding to the emergency.19 Despite
decades of military rule, community life is not static on the
ground.

Ceasefire Groups and Border Guard Forces

From the 1950s to the 1980s, Burma was subject to a com-

plex and shifting network of armed ethnic and political
insurgencies. One of the main strategic achievements of
the SLORC junta, which assumed power in 1988, was the
negotiation of truces with a majority of armed opposition
groups. Between 1989 and 1995, Gen. Khin Nyunt nego-
tiated ceasefire arrangements between the Tatmadaw and
over 25 insurgent organisations, including a dozen local
militias that agreed unofficial truces.

The first of these were breakaway groups from the insur-

gent Communist Party of Burma (CPB) that collapsed in
1989 due to ethnic mutinies. The largest was the 20,000-
strong United Wa State Army (UWSA) which became
Burma’s most powerful non-state armed group. From
1991, agreements were also struck by the regime with sev-
eral groups allied with the KNU, such as the Kachin Inde-
pendence Organisation (KIO) in 1994 and the New Mon
State Party (NMSP) in 1995. The ceasefires were not peace
treaties, and generally lacked all but the most rudimentary
accommodation of the economic development demands
Landmine victim in IDP camp in Karen State (TK)

of these ethnic opponents, some of which had extensive

civil administrations of their own. In most cases, however,
the ceasefire groups were allowed to retain their arms and
granted de facto autonomy, control of sometimes extensive
blocks of territory, and the right to extract natural resourc-
es in their territories.

Following the purge of Khin Nyunt and his military intelli-

gence apparatus in October 2004, the ceasefire agreements
came under renewed pressure. In 2005-06, two of the small
ceasefire groups in Shan State were forcibly disarmed by the
Tatmadaw, while others had business concessions revoked.
In a controversial move, in late April 2009 the government
proposed that the remaining armed groups with which it

13
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Karen Armed Groups

For many observers, the history of Karen armed nationalist

movement is synonymous with that of the KNU. However,
after over six decades of conflict, the organisation is only
one of seven Karen armed groups that are still active in
early 2011 (see Table 1).

The Karen National Union

Between the late 1940s and early 1990s, the KNU was ar-
guably the most significant of Burma’s diverse ethnic and
political insurgent groups. For much of this period, the
KNU operated as a de facto government, controlling large
swathes of territory across Karen State and adjacent areas.
Although not internationally recognised, the KNU admin-
istration aspired to reproduce modern state-like structures,
including departments for health, education, law, forestry
and other aspects of civil administration, making claims
to a legitimate monopolisation of security and policing, as
well as the right to extract taxes.

Since the 1960s however, the armed Karen nationalist

movement has been retreating from lowland Burma into
the eastern border hills. This long retreat has seen elites
from the Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon assume leadership
over disparate Karen-speaking communities in remote ar-
eas. As Chris Cusano notes:21

as the eastward retreat into the Dawna mountains and to-

wards the Thai border hastened during the 1960s and 1970s,
lowland and urban Karens from the Irrawaddy Delta, Yan-
gon and Insein began moving to the new ‘liberated areas’.
Serving the KNU’s mountain strongholds, the lowland Ka-
rens married local highlanders, producing a generation of
culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse Karens who
personify the socio-demographic impact of the KNU’s east-
ward migration. As a war in the mountains intensified, the
KNU recruited more of the traditionally insular highlanders,
and the fate of migrant KNU insurgents and local Karen ci-
vilians became inextricably linked.

By the 1990s, the KNU had lost control of most of the

once-extensive ‘liberated zones’, although in the Thai bor-
derlands the organisation still exerted varying degrees of
influence over areas contested with government forces and
proxy militias. This process was accompanied by a dramat-
ic fall in revenues for the organisation, derived from taxing
the black market, cross-border trade and logging deals.

The formation of the breakaway DKBA in December 1994

heightened the sense of crisis within the KNU. The fall of
KNU headquarters at Manerplaw the following month
caused 10,000 refugees to flee to Thailand. In March 1995
Kaw Moo Rah, the KNU’s last major base north of Mae Sot,
fell to a sustained Tatmadaw onslaught. The KNLA rem-

14
 Karen Armed Groups

TABLE 1: Karen Armed Groups (Does not include various local militias.)

Name Formation Status Leader Strength

Insurgent groups
Karen National Union February 1947 Active armed conflict Tamla Baw 7 Brigades/ 3000-plus
active Karen National
Liberation Army sol-
diers [Karen State and
Mon State, Bago and
Tenasserim Regions]
‘Kloh Htoo Baw’ December 1994/ ex-ceasefire group; re- La Pwe [a.k.a. N’Kam 500-800 [southern
group [ex- Demo- November 2010 sumed armed conflict Mweh – ‘Mr Mous- Karen State]
cratic Karen Buddhist November 2010 tache’]
Army – a.k.a. DKBA
Brigade 5 – plus
some other non-BGF
DKBA units]
Ceasefire groups
Karen Border Guard December 1994/ ex-ceasefire group; Tha Htoo Kyaw 12 Battalions/ 3-4000
Force [ex-DKBA] August 2010 incorporated into soldiers [central and
Tatmadaw command northern Karen State,
structure August 2010 Mon State]
[aligned with Karen
State Democracy and
Development Party]
Thandaung Peace April 1998 ceasefire group; semi- Farrey Moe [a.k.a Pee 100 soldiers [Toungoo
Group [a.k.a. Leikto defunct Reh] area, eastern Bago
Group] Region/ northern
Karen State]
P’doh Aung San Group April 1998 ceasefire group; semi- P’doh Aung San Max. 20 [Pa’an area,
defunct [ex-KNU forestry central Karen State]
minister; successful
USDP candidate 2010
elections]
Karen Border Guard February 1997/ ex-ceasefire group; Daw Daw/Lae Win 1 Battalion, plus some
Force [ex-Karen August 2010 incorporated into [previously Thu Mu militia (prior to BGF
Peace Force/ Hongth- Tatmadaw command Hae] transformation, 3
arong Peace Group] structure August 2010 columns)/
[aligned with Karen 150-200 soldiers
State Democracy and [southern Karen
Development Party] State]

KNU/KNLA Peace February 2007 non-BGF ceasefire Htein Maung 300 soldiers [central
Council group; relationship Karen State]
with government
highly unstable

nants retreated north into the Papun hills and south to the
Sixth Brigade area in lower Karen State. Life in the Karen
insurgency would never be the same again.
The fall of Gen. Bo Mya’s Manerplaw headquarters to the
DKBA and Tatmadaw symbolized the beginning-of-the-
end of the veteran warlord’s influence. In 2000 he was de-
moted to KNU Vice-Chairman and, as his health declined,
Bo Mya was largely sidelined from the leadership. He was
succeeded by his old protégé, Saw Ba Thein Sein. These
factors, in combination with pressure from neighbouring
Thailand, led to the KNU taking part in a series of ceasefire
negotiations with the military government.
Despite these territorial losses, the KNU has continued to
operate in remote mountain and forest localities. Like the
Tatmadaw and other Karen forces, the KNLA uses land
mines extensively. Indeed, it seems unlikely that the KNU
could continue to mount a guerrilla war in Burma without
recourse to these devices.22 Over the years, Karen non-state
armed groups (including the KNU) have also perpetrated
a range of abuses, including forcible taxation and conscrip-
tion, and unlawful killings.23 In general, however, KNLA
personnel seem to be involved in human rights violations
on a less systematic level than either the Tatmadaw or
DKBA.24

15
 Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
In pursuit of their goals, the KNU, affiliated organisations
and individuals have long called for Karen ‘unity’. In prac-
tice, this has generally meant the KNU being granted un-
contested political leadership of the nationalist movement.
Given the diversity of Karen communities however, stra-
tegic approaches celebrating ‘unity amid diversity’ may be
more likely to achieve Karen consensus in the future (see
below).
KNU Ceasefire Negotiations
Following largely unsuccessful peace talks in 1963-64,
thirty years elapsed before a new phase of negotiations
got underway between the government and the KNU. In
1994 Karen mediators from Yangon undertook two trips to
Manerplaw, led by the late Anglican Archbishop Andrew
Mya Han. The formation later that year of a five-member
Karen Peace Mediator Group facilitated four further ‘con-
fidence-building’ meetings between the KNU and SLORC
between 1995 and 1997.
Alan Saw U25 recalls that Archbishop Mya Han “pleaded
with Karen leaders to … [achieve] ‘resolution of the Karen
ethnic affairs’, rather than … ushering in ‘true democratic
ideals and freedom for the whole country’”; i.e. he priori-
tized the ‘ethnic question’ above issues of national-level
democracy. By insisting on the need for a comprehensive
settlement to Burma’s political and humanitarian crises as
a precondition for negotiations with the military govern-
ment, the KNU leadership effectively foreclosed the pos-
KNLA soldiers on Moei River bank near Thai border (HvdB)
16
sibility of agreeing a ceasefire. Critics accused the hard-
liners in the KNU leadership of sacrificing the interests of
Karen communities in the conflict zones for the sake of an
increasingly elusive breakthrough at the national political
level.
At the urging of exile Burmese opposition groups, the
KNU agreed not to further pursue ceasefire negotiations in
1994. This was a decision that cost the organisation dear-
ly.26 Within a few months, the emergence of the DKBA had
severely weakened the KNU, and in January 1995 the op-
position alliance headquarters at Manerplaw was overrun.
In December 1995, and three times in 1996, KNU delega-
tions travelled to Moulmein and Yangon, where they met
with military intelligence officials close to Khin Nyunt.
For a while, it seemed that the symbolically important, al-
though militarily much weakened, KNU might also agree a
truce like the KIO, NMSP and other ethnic ceasefire forces.
However, Gen. Bo Mya and other hard-liners were unwill-
ing to accept the standard SLORC ceasefire package. In-
stead, at a February 1997 meeting of insurgent - and some
ceasefire - groups at the village of Mae Hta Raw Tha in the
KNLA Sixth Brigade area, they released a declaration, de-
manding a nation-wide ceasefire, the release of political
prisoners and substantive political dialogue. Unsurpris-
ingly, the SLORC was unwilling to compromise, and soon
after launched a devastating offensive against the last KNU
liberated zones, in Fourth and Sixth Brigades - again caus-
ing thousands of civilians to flee across the border, as well
as further splits in KNU ranks.

In December 2003 Gen. Bo Mya sent an unofficial five-
man delegation to Yangon, composed of his own private
staff and officers of the KNLA Seventh Brigade, who had
convinced him of the need for a settlement to the armed
conflict. Acting without the authority of the KNU Central
Committee, Bo Mya was concerned to bolster his legacy
and revive the waning influence of his family, including his
ambitious but inexperienced son Ner Dah.
On 12 December, at a press conference at a Bangkok hotel,
Bo Mya announced the existence of a ‘gentleman’s agree-
ment’ to cease fighting with the SPDC. This dramatic de-
velopment took the official KNU leadership by surprise.
After some heated discussions in Mae Sot (where the KNU
leadership was effectively based after the fall of Maner-
plaw) - and despite serious misgivings in some circles - the
KNU endorsed its erstwhile leader’s initiative.27 Although
the following year-and-a-half saw a reduction in hostilities,
both sides continued to conscript recruits. Tatmadaw units
used the truce as an opportunity to re-supply front-line
positions and to move troops into new bases in previously
contested areas, much to the frustration of KNLA com-
manders.
Substantial KNU-SPDC ceasefire talks began in Yangon in
January 2004. The mood was symbolised by photographs of
the veteran KNU commander, Gen. Bo Mya, and his long-
time adversary, Gen. Khin Nyunt, engaged in a friendly
discussion at a government guesthouse. The talks might
have led to the agreement of a substantial truce. During
these negotiations a government representative for the first
time admitted that the Tatmadaw had engaged in exten-
sive population relocation as part of its counter-insurgent
strategy. He also accepted that, with an end to the fighting,
these people might be able to go home and receive appro-
priate assistance.
However the next round of talks was delayed for several
months. This followed an incident on 23 February 2004 in
which KNLA Third Brigade troops attacked a Tatmadaw
camp in western Nyaunglebin District, killing several
soldiers and seizing weapons and some communications
equipment. Although the KNLA returned the captured
materials and disciplined the troops involved, the SPDC
broke off negotiations for several months.
The purge of Khin Nyunt in October 2004 represented a
serious setback to the negotiation of a settlement to the
long-running Karen insurgency. Since 2005, it has become
clear that the military government is no longer interested
in negotiating new ceasefires with its erstwhile battlefield
foes.
Two further rounds of ceasefire talks did take place in
March and May 2005 in Moulmein and Myawaddy. The
KNU team’s negotiating strategy was to define a series
of problems to be addressed (agenda-setting), in order
to identify the nature of the issues, before engaging the
Karen Armed Groups
government side on possible solutions. However, in the
aftermath of the fall of Khin Nyunt, the Tatmadaw repre-
sentatives showed little interest in negotiation. The KNU
was offered three small patches of territory in which to sta-
tion troops (in KNLA First, Fifth and Sixth Brigade areas),
and given some vague assurances regarding the provision
of development assistance. In effect, the KNU was told to
‘take it or leave it.’
These developments served to strengthen the hand of hard-
line, anti-ceasefire actors on the border and undermined
the positions of those who sought to negotiate an end to
the armed conflict. Subsequently, the SPDC’s 2009 Border
Guard Force initiative to transform ceasefire groups into
Tatmadaw-controlled militias confirmed for many KNU
leaders the ascendancy of hardliners within the military
government who appear less interested in compromising
with armed ethnic opposition groups.
Alliance Politics
Burmese politics emerged into international consciousness
as a result of the suppression by the military State Law and
Order Restoration Council of the 1988 ‘democracy upris-
ing’. Among many historic events, this turbulent period
was notable for the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi, the
daughter of Burma’s independence hero, as a national po-
litical leader who articulated and symbolised the desire of
many citizens for democratic change.
Following the September 1988 suppression of the ‘democ-
racy uprising’, and again after the military government
failed to recognise the results of the May 1990 elections,
some 10,000 students and other activists and refugees fled
to border areas controlled by ethnic Mon, Karen, Kar-
enni and Kachin armed groups. They established a series
of camps, where ‘student soldiers’ received basic military
training and supplies from the battle-hardened insurgents.
The political significance of these new arrivals was consid-
erable. The events of 1988-90 had focused international at-
tention on the situation in Burma, and it seemed that at
last a degree of unity had emerged between ethnic forces
and the largely urban-based, Burman-dominated pro-de-
mocracy opposition. The new alliance represented a real
threat to the control and legitimacy of the SLORC military
government.
In November 1988 the KNU and 22 other anti-SLORC
groups formed the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB),
a broad-based, joint ethnic minority-Burman opposition
front. In the DAB ‘liberated zones’, the early 1990s wit-
nessed a degree of optimism absent from the ethnic insur-
gencies for more than a decade. However, this growth in
momentum among border-based opposition groups and
their supporters was short-lived. Following the 1989 col-
lapse of the Communist Party of Burma, insurgent strength
began to decline to its lowest point since independence.
17
KNLA soldiers in Karen State (TK) Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
Partly, this was due to the ceasefires agreed by the regime
with different ethnic opposition forces. But it was also
partly due to a lack of unity and political skills among the
different opposition camps. Opposition political forma-
tions became increasingly reliant on refuge in neighbour-
ing countries and exiles overseas. Indeed the patronage of
foreign governments and donors kept the exiled alliance
afloat longer in the borderlands than might otherwise have
been expected.
Despite these setbacks, border and exile-based opposition
formations continued to wage a war of political propa-
ganda, combined with limited insurgent activities. At the
beginning of 2011, the main political opposition umbrella
group was the National Council for the Union of Burma
(NCUB, established, under a different name, in 199028),
with armed ethnic nationality groups represented by the
National Democratic Front (NDF, established 197629), and
minority political and social organisations participating in
the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC, established, under
a different name, in 2001; re-formed 2004). The continued
relevance of these opposition alliances was challenged in
February 2011 with the formation of the United Nationali-
ties Federal Council (UNFC: see below).
Over the years, Gen. Bo Mya and other KNU leaders on
the Thailand border have linked their dominant positions
within the Karen nationalist movement to participation in
anti-SLORC/SPDC united-front politics. By playing lead-
ing roles in alliance politics, KNU hardliners have been
able to stifle dissent within their own organisation, while
drawing on the patronage of an international Burma de-
18
mocracy campaign. Such developments inevitably made
the KNU a more significant target for suppression by the
military the regime. Some non-KNU Karen leaders have
questioned the organisation’s close relationships with exile
political groups and suggested that the Karen nationalist
movement should focus more on its own core constituency
among the Karen people in Burma itself (see below).
The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army
The emergence of the Democratic Kayin30 (Karen) Bud-
dhist Army constituted a massive upheaval within the
Karen nationalist movement, the repercussions of which
are felt to this day. The history and dynamics of the DKBA
are less well-known than that of its ‘mother organisation’,
the KNU.
In August 2010 most DKBA battalions were transformed
into Tatmadaw-controlled Border Guard Force units, al-
though one prominent field commander in the southern
Karen State refused this order and resumed armed conflict
with the government (see below). Therefore, when refer-
ring to DKBA units for the period after August 2010, this
report will use the designation ‘DKBA BGF’ (see Table 1).
At the time of writing, it remains unclear how much of a
distinct Karen nationalist identity and what degree of op-
erational autonomy these DKBA BGF units will be able to
retain. Since its formation in the mid-1990s, the DKBA has
been under the Tatmadaw’s operational and political con-
trol. Thus its transformation into BGF units may be pri-
marily symbolic, with only limited impact on the ground.
 Karen Armed Groups

The formation of the DKBA was, in part, a product of poor
political skills at the top of the KNU, combined with often
deeply-held grievances among many in the Karen Bud-
dhist community. Inter-faith disputes arose out of years of
neglect, and some localized suppression, of the Buddhist
(predominantly Pwo) majority within the rank-and-file of
the KNLA/KNU by the Christian and Sgaw Karen elite.31
These tensions came to a head after 1989 with the arrival of
U Thuzana, a prominent Karen Buddhist monk, at the Thu
Mweh Hta monastery a few miles north of Manerplaw.
Manerplaw - on the west bank of the Moei River that
marks a stretch of the Thailand-Burma border - had been
the KNU headquarters since the early 1970s (see Map 3).
In the early 1990s, U Thuzana (who went on to become
patron monk of the DKBA) was based a few miles to the
north, proclaiming his vision of a Karen space of peace and
tranquillity, centred on the building of Buddhist ‘peace pa-
godas’.32 These traditional Karen millenarian themes had
a special relevance in the war-weary villages and canton-
ments of the eastern Karen hills, and they recall discourse
and practices characteristic of the famous monastic sanctu-
ary at Thamanya, near Hpa-an (see below). Tensions came
to a head in December 1994, when a group of disaffected
Buddhist Karen soldiers deserted their front-line positions.
Frustrated with decades of seemingly futile warfare, and
concerned that their religious identities were not respected
by the KNU leadership, these subaltern forces gathered
at the Thu Mweh Hta monastery and swore allegiance to
U Thuzana. On 21 December 1994 this loosely organised
group established the Democratic Karen Buddhist Organi-
sation (DKBO) and Army. From the outset, the DKBA re-
ceived military and logistical support from local Tatmadaw
units and Military Intelligence agents provocateurs. Ulti-
mately, however, the emergence of the DKBA at a time of
great crisis in the Karen nationalist movement was more a
result of genuine grievances within the Buddhist commu-
nity. Rank-and-file Buddhist KNLA soldiers in particular
resented the domination of the KNU by Christian elites,
and perceived corruption within the organisation.
Senior DKBA leaders see the KNU, with its political west-
ern-oriented state-making project, as having failed. The
DKBA agenda is focused on top-down economic devel-
opment of the Karen nation. Some DKBA informants ex-
pressed confidence that they could continue to pursue this
agenda under the new status as BGF formations. From 1995
through 2009, most DKBA units enjoyed considerable op-
erational autonomy, while answering in general terms both
to local Tatmadaw commanders and to the DKBA leader-
ship at Myaing Gyi Ngu (in central Karen State: see Map
3). However, as the DKBA transformed itself into a BGF in
the second half of 2010, field commanders came to enjoy
decreasing levels of autonomy.
It remains unclear how much support the DKBA enjoys
within the wider Karen population, many of whom are
disappointed by the organisation’s inability to promote a
Karen nationalist agenda. For example, although there are
schools in DKBA-controlled areas, these generally do not
teach Karen languages, but rather follow the government
(Burmese language) curriculum. However DKBA leaders
point out that the organisation does patronise Karen lan-
guage teaching during the school summer holidays.
The August 2010 transformation of most DKBA into BGF
battalions was formally accomplished during four ceremo-
nies held in different parts of Karen State that month, pre-
sided over by the Tatmadaw South-East Commander. In
Karen State, there were 13 BGF battalions: 12 comprised of
DKBA units and one formed by another KNU breakaway

Since its formation, the DKBA has lacked a coherent com-

mand-and-control structure. Local DKBA units have of-
ten acted as a proxy militia for the Tatmadaw, deflecting
some domestic and international criticism for the military
DKBA leader U Thuzana in DKBA publication

government’s often brutal policies.33 Like some of their

KNU-KNLA counterparts, many DKBA commanders and
soldiers are ‘conflict entrepreneurs’, for whom military and
political status is a means to personal power and enrich-
ment. However DKBA leaders often also employ strong
ethno-nationalist rhetoric and have implemented several
local infrastructure development projects. Furthermore,
conditions for internally-displaced persons (IDPs) and
other civilians in DKBA-controlled ceasefire areas are
better than those in zones of ongoing armed conflict or
government-controlled relocation sites.34 Despite its name,
there are Christians within the ranks of the DKBA, includ-
ing some senior officers.

19
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
group, the Karen Peace Force. In accordance with BGF reg-
ulations, several senior DKBA commanders had to retire,
being over 50 years old.35 Seven top DKBA commanders
(including Kyaw Than, Tha Htoo Kyaw, Pah Nweh and Cit
Thu) were enrolled in a ‘advisory board’, with a supervisory
role in relation to the Karen BGF battalions. This, in prac-
tice, removed them from day-to-day military command.
Nevertheless four DKBA BGF battalions were under the
authority of Col. Chit Thu.36 This ambitious DKBA com-
mander had previously been in charge of eight DKBA bat-
talions under the 999 ‘Special Battalion’, based at Shwe Ko
Ko on the west bank of the Moei River.
In October 2009 the DKBA’s chief patron and advisor, the
monk U Thuzana, met with KNU/KNLA leaders to discuss
the possibility of an armistice between the two groups. Re-
portedly, this meeting was arranged after influential Karen
monks and village leaders had written to U Thuzana, ask-
ing him to mend some of the damage done to Karen soci-
ety by the DKBA, and because of the monk’s unhappiness
with the BGF proposal.
In some parts of southern Karen State where the KNLA
Sixth Brigade operates, the KNU and DKBA enjoyed a rel-
atively smooth relationship, based on mutual business in-
terests in natural resource extraction (logging and mining
activities). For many years, villagers living in these areas
benefited from the relative stability that ensued. This last-
ed until 2010 when the local DKBA commander rejected
transformation into a BGF.
Elsewhere in Karen State, many DKBA units gained a repu-
tation for acting as predatory forces, perpetrating violence
against villagers and KNU forces alike. In 2011, as the BGF
issue continues to put strains on relationships between the
government and DKBA formations, senior KNU leaders
expect to receive more defections from disgruntled ex-
DKBA members.
The Role of Thailand
The mountainous and once thickly-forested border zones
between Thailand (formerly known as Siam) and Burma
are populated by various ethnic minorities. Since before
the momentous Burmese-Mon-Thai wars of the 18th cen-
tury, Karen-populated border areas had served as a buffer
between the lowland states - and traditional rivals - Thai-
land and Burma. During this period, Karen levies acted as
porters and spies for different invading armies, while Karen
princelings were allowed a fair degree of autonomy in run-
ning community affairs in areas distant from the central
lowland courts.
The buffer role played by border areas continued into the
modern period, with Thai (and indirectly American) secu-
rity interests supporting Karen armed groups in southeast
Burma in order to prevent well-armed and organised com-
20
munist parties in Thailand and Burma, backed by China,
from joining up. From the 1950s through to the 1970s,
Western security strategists feared that Thailand would be-
come ‘the next domino’, following Vietnam, Cambodia and
Laos into the communist sphere of influence. Such con-
cerns explain Thai and American support for anti-commu-
nist Karen leaders, such as Gen. Bo Mya.
For many years, the main anti-communist forces in Burma
were Kuomintang remnants from China that settled on
the Shan State-Thailand border. But at the height of the
Cold War these forces also came to include the KNU, as
well as Shan, Mon and other ethnic formations. From the
late 1980s however, Thai policy regarding its neighbours
changed from one of surreptitiously undermining rivals
and traditional enemies through supporting armed groups
in the border areas to a strategy of directly engaging nation-
al governments. The policy of ‘turning battlegrounds into
marketplaces’ is credited to Thai Prime Minister Chatchai
Choonhavan. This was a precursor to the ASEAN regional
strategy of ‘constructive engagement’ with Burma, and un-
der which state - and above all private corporate - agencies
sought to engage directly with the military government
and business networks. The policy of ‘constructive engage-
ment’ accelerated following Burma’s 1997 membership
of ASEAN, witnessing considerable amounts of overseas
(ASEAN but also Chinese) investment in Burma, particu-
larly in natural resource extraction. As a result of the new
policy environment, insurgent groups in the borderlands
found their previously supportive relationships with Thai
business and security authorities greatly weakened. In
summary, the KNU was transformed from a valuable (if
low-profile) ally of the Thai security establishment to a nui-
sance, impeding investment in the borderlands.
Economics and Infrastructure Development
The border areas have historically been remote from the
centres of political and economic power in Thailand and
Burma. However, the implementation of major infrastruc-
ture projects is likely to incorporate these previously mar-
ginal areas into significant regional economies. The Great-
er Mekong Sub-region initiative of the Asian Development
Bank, including the Asia Highway from Mae Sot to Hpa-an
via Myawaddy and the East-West Economic Corridor and
related initiatives, could transform southeast Burma. The
government already earns more than $2 billion annually
from oil and gas sales, an amount which may rise over the
next decade to some $8 billion a year.
Large-scale infrastructure projects will have major impacts,
as illustrated by the Dawei Development Project that will
be centred on the construction of a deep-sea port in the
Andaman sea. Due to be implemented by Ital-Thai com-
pany, the first stage alone is estimated to be valued at some
US$13 billion and will include railway and road links from
Dawei to Kanchanaburi in Thailand, industrial estates, a re-
 Karen Armed Groups

Map 4 - Economic and Infrastructure Development

21
 Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
finery and a steel mill in Dawei. Significant environmental
concerns have been raised by the prospect of dirty indus-
tries being relocated from central and lower in Thailand.
Potential problems also include the lack of rights workers
in these developments will have and local landowners’ vul-
nerability to forcible appropriation of their farmlands. Pre-
vious large-scale infrastructure developments in Burma
have resulted in ‘development-induced’ displacement and
increased vulnerability.
The Dawei Development Project is an indication of the fu-
ture direction of relations between Thailand and Burma.
Thailand sees many opportunities along the shared border:
hydroelectricity schemes, export processing zones, con-
tract farming, and tourism.37 As the economic relationship
between the two countries becomes ever stronger, this will
have major implications for the southeast of Burma, and
indeed for mainland Southeast Asia as a whole. It will give
Thailand a major stake in stability in the area, which may
result in greater pressure on the KNU and other armed
groups. It will also give the Burma government greater
leverage over Thai policies towards Burma dissidents and
refugees in Thailand. Any economic opportunities to pop-
ulations in southeast Burma will be accompanied by risks,
including environmental costs and the threat of labour ex-
ploitation. Therefore, in the short-to-middle term at least,
Women forced to carry loads for the Burma army (FBR)
22
infrastructure and other development projects in southeast
Burma are likely to be drivers of conflict, possibly generat-
ing patterns of forced migration.38
For the Karen and other ethnic nationalities in Burma,
much will depend on how community leaders position
themselves in relation to such economic developments.
Will they be able to demonstrate to the international com-
munity, and in particular the private corporate sector, that
they are part of the solution to developing a modern, equi-
table and sustainable economy, or will they remain stuck in
the politics of opposition or defiance which has character-
ised much of the past half-century in Burma?
Guns and Governance -
Political Economy and Political Cultures
With the outbreak of widespread insurgency following in-
dependence, localised forms of governance re-emerged,
sometimes recalling the political cultures of the pre-
colonial period. Burma in the 1950s was characterised by
a patchwork of armed conflicts, motivated by a combina-
tion of social and political grievances (articulated through
appeals to communism or ethnic nationalist agendas), and
political-economic self-interest.

As occurred during the pre-colonial period, local strong-
men sought to mobilise populations through a combina-
tion of charisma, violence, economic incentive and appeals
to various forms of legitimacy, based on the articulation
of grievances which often resonate strongly with local
population. In chaotic situations of armed conflict, local
‘war economies’ emerged, often based on the exploitation
of natural resources and/or extracting revenues from the
peasantry. Insurgent commanders tended to fuse their per-
sonal and professional roles and finances, leading to the re-
emergence of neo-patrimonial forms of governance.39 In
southeast Burma, the long-time KNU Chairman, Gen. Bo
Mya, typified these characteristics, with his combination of
strongly-held ethnic nationalist views, and self-interested
economic agendas.
Commenting on the distinction between ‘traditional’ and
modern forms of political administration, Thongchai Win-
ichakul describes state frontiers in pre-colonial Southeast
Asia as discontinuous, rather than tightly-bounded. Pre-
colonial frontiers were “the limit within which the authori-
ties of a country could exercise their power... the areas left
over became a huge corridor between the two countries.”40
Such ‘unbounded’ frontier areas characterised the insur-
gent-controlled para-states in Burma which emerged in
the 1950s. These atavistic characteristics extended into
the governance of refugee and exile communities. Ananda
Raja41 analysed the manner in which, unlike the modern
nation-state with its clear territorial boundaries, the insur-
gent para-state has a ‘frontier’ area or zone, rather than a
border, which may overlap with the frontiers of other para-
states, or with more firmly established governance struc-
tures of the internationally recognised state.
As noted above, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, under
ceasefires negotiated between the military government and
some two dozen armed ethnic groups, the insurgents ‘lib-
erated zones’ were transformed into government-recog-
nised ‘Special Regions’. In many cases, the ceasefire areas
continued to be ruled as personal fiefdoms, with ill-defined
borders which overlapped with those of the state and other
non-state actors.42
Greed and Grievance
Scholars such as Paul Collier43 have analysed the causes
of armed conflict primarily in terms of the economic
opportunities available to combatants (‘greed’-based
explanations). David Keen,44 criticises this approach,
pointing out that conflict actors’ perceptions of socio-
political and historic injustices are equally important
in understanding their motivation (‘grievance’-based
motivations).45 Over time, armed conflicts tend to be
transformed, as structural influences move away from
original (often ‘grievance’-based) causes, towards new
(‘greed’-orientated) factors. Armed conflict and civil
war also create new grievances as they transform.
Karen Armed Groups
Following the fall of former Military Intelligence chief and
Prime Minister Khin Nyunt in October 2004, the govern-
ment moved to incorporate these networks of compliance
into more formal relationships under a new constitutional
arrangement. A number of ceasefire groups supported the
governance structures emerging through the government-
controlled National Convention process (1993-2007), ei-
ther because they had no choice, because they considered
acquiescence politically expedient, or because they per-
ceived advantages in doing so for their communities and
their leaders’ interests. The new governance arrangements
were codified in the May 2008 constitution, which came
into law during 2011 when the new government was con-
vened following the November 2010 elections.
Forms of Political Authority
As Mary Callahan notes,46 “citizens in the ethnic minor-
ity states of Burma live under the authority of multiple
‘states’ or ‘state-like’ authorities’ that extract resources
from citizens, both mediate and cause conflict, and
provide some services for residents and commercial
interests. The range of competing systems of authority
sometimes creates ambiguity … [which also] generates
opportunities for personal advancement and wealth gen-
eration for some, but much of the population is left with
limited strategies for survival or improvement.” Calla-
han utilizes Mark Duffield’s47 concept of the ‘emerging
political complex’ to explain novel forms of governance
emerging in these armed conflict-affected regions. In the
Burmese context, such local, often violent and inequita-
ble, adaptations constitute: “a set of flexible and adaptive
networks that link state and other political authorities
to domestic and foreign business concerns (some legal,
others illegal), traditional indigenous leaders, religious
authorities, overseas refugee and diaspora communities,
political party leaders, and NGOs. All of these players
make rules, extract resources, provide protection, and
try to order a moral universe... They exist in a competi-
tive, yet often complicit and complementary, milieu that
varies across geographical space and time.”
These ‘emerging political complexes’ often provide the
only forms of protection for vulnerable people, living
beyond the reach of formal state authorities or interna-
tional agencies. Martin Smith48 has also utilized Duff-
ield’s work, to demonstrate how durable conflict actors
have adapted to changing political-economic condi-
tions, against a backdrop of conflict, in which “the lines
between legitimacy and illegitimacy have frequently
been blurred, the politics and economics of self-survival
have come to dominate, and predatory warlordism has
often been rife on all sides of the conflict-zones.”
23
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Karen Civil and Political

Society ‘Inside Myanmar’

For half-a-century, the state has sought to penetrate and

mobilize the country’s diverse social groups. The existence
of armed opposition to the central government has pro-
vided a pretext for the further extension of state control,
and suppression of diverse social groups. After 1962, the
military regime’s suppression of non-Burman cultural and
political identities, epitomized by the banning of minor-
ity languages from state schools, has in turn driven further
waves of disaffected ethnic minority citizens into rebel-
lion.49

Among the few institutions in Burma not directly con-

trolled by the state, religious-based institutions, particular-
ly the 250,000-strong Buddhist Sangha and the Christian
churches, are among the potentially most powerful sectors
of civil society. Most recently, Buddhist monks’ leadership
of anti-government protests in August and September 2007
illustrated the deep unpopularity of the SPDC regime and
the influential role of the Sangha. They recalled those few
weeks in the summer of 1988, when it seemed that ‘people’s
power’ might prevail in Burma.

However, such public displays of protest have been rare.

During the SLORC-SPDC era, social control was system-
atically reinforced by the reformation of local militias and
mass organizations, and the indoctrination of civil servants.
The police, and even the fire brigade, were brought under
military control, and the regime established a number of
new ‘Government-Organised NGOs’ (GONGOs). The
most substantial of these new organisations was the Union
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), estab-
lished in September 1993 along the lines of the pro-mili-
tary GOLKAR party in Indonesia, with a reported mem-
bership of more than 20 million. The USDA’s objectives
included upholding the regime’s ‘Three National Causes’
(non-disintegration of the union, non-disintegration of
national solidarity, and perpetuation of national solidar-
ity), which may be seen as a muscular affirmation of the
Tatmadaw’s self-appointed state and nation-building role.
Indeed, the USDA and the para-military Peoples Vigorous
Association (PVA or Sorn Arr Shin) were heavily involved
in the suppression of the September 2007 protests. In 2010
the USDA was transformed into the Union Solidarity and
Development Party (USDP), which inherited many of the
association’s funds and networks of influence (see below).

Outside of regime control, the first decade of the new mil-

lennium also saw an acceleration in the re-emergence of
civil society and political networks in non-government
circles. This was particularly the case within and between
ethnic nationality communities, including the Karen. Al-
though the sector remained liable to infiltration and sup-
pression by the militarised state, its blossoming during
this period was a progressive aspect in an otherwise bleak

24

socio-political scene in Burma. Several of the most promi-
nent Karen civil society initiatives espoused a strong eth-
nic nationality identity, without however the endorsing the
strategies adopted by insurgents in the borderlands.
These non-KNU Karen voices have been marginalised in
most discussions of Karen nationalism in Burma, especially
in English language discourses produced by outside actors,
such as missionaries, aid workers and activists. Neverthe-
less, those Karen civilians who are not members or active
supporters of the KNU constitute a very large majority of
the population.50 Many of these actors differ to the KNU in
terms of both strategy and social and political goals.
An important exception to this critique of existing litera-
tures is the work of Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung.51 She
notes that “despite [the KNU’s] history of armed struggle,
a sizeable number of Karen remained in the Union of Bur-
ma, either because they rejected the principles and meth-
ods of the KNU, because they thought the risk of joining
the armed resistance was too great, or simply because they
were politically passive.” It is not possible to characterise
members of such a diverse ethno-linguistic and socio-eco-
nomic community as the Karen in terms of a few common
characteristics. Nevertheless, by isolating certain tenden-
cies in relation to political orientation, a fuller picture of
the ‘Union Karen’ community emerges.
The Union Karen perspective incorporates a loosely-de-
fined set of ideas of Karen nationalism, distinct from the
KNU’s militarised nation-building objectives. Associated
with elites in Yangon and the Irrawaddy Delta, this less ag-
gressive nationalist stance has sought accommodation with
the state, rather than challenging its foundations. A broad
range of Union Karen views were quite well-represented
through the independence and parliamentary periods; for
example, by the Karen Youth Organization in the post-
Second World War years. However, since the imposition of
military rule in 1962, and especially following the events of
1988-90, the Union Karen voice has been marginalised in
comparison with the uncompromising rhetoric produced
by opposition groups along the Thailand border. In part,
this exclusion is explained by government restrictions on
international access to Karen groups working ‘inside’ the
country,52 which led to the lack of a Union Karen voice in
reporting on the country. Relatively few researchers have
made efforts to engage with this sector of Karen political
and civil society. Indeed, members of the Burma activist
community tend to assume that those actors working for
socio-political change inside the country must be stooges
of the military government. In its most extreme form, op-
position discourse denies the legitimacy of any activity to
promote socio-economic or political change carried out
in government-controlled areas, beyond the out-and-out
opposition of the National League for Democracy (NLD)
and its allies. Furthermore, due to the restrictions and frus-
trations of working in military-ruled Burma, the Union
Karen have had to adopt strategies of subterfuge, working
Karen Civil and Political Society ‘Inside Myanmar’
behind-the-scenes in ways that do not attract attention,
and producing writings that have to be read ‘between-the-
lines’.53
Many Karen communities in Burma are led and guided
by their religious leaders (pastors or monks). Most ac-
tive Union Karen networks operate under the patronage
and umbrella of protection of a handful of mostly elderly
politicians, many of whom are retired state officials or pol-
iticians who ‘returned to the legal fold’ in the 1950s and
1960s. This change in personal strategy was often due to
frustration with the KNU’s hard-line nationalist position.
In most cases, these elites subscribe to a Christian-oriented
Karen identity, similar to that held by border-based groups.
However, they do not perceive a fundamental contradic-
tion between citizenship of a centrally-governed state and
the pursuit of greater economic, social, cultural, linguistic
and political autonomy for their communities.
Karen Civil Society in Burma
According to Alan Saw U,54 a key Karen civil society actor
in Burma:
many Karen people in Myanmar have become very weary
and fed up with the prolonged civil war and its consequenc-
es. They are of the opinion that it is imperative … to direct
their energies to mobilizing their cultural wisdom, religious
knowledge and social understanding so as to constructive-
ly work towards a better future. Since the beginning of the
1990s, various Karen groups in Myanmar have been trying
… to build confidence and strengthen capacities of the vari-
ous elements in the Karen community and to foster coop-
eration between them. The Karen leaders in Myanmar have
projected the idea of transferring the ‘armed struggle in the
battle field’ to the ‘political struggle around the table.’
Alan Saw U provides a surprisingly frank account of civil
society and low-profile political developments within the
Karen community since the mid-1990s.55 He describes ac-
tivities in the fields of peace-making, including various ini-
tiatives to resolve the armed conflict, undertaken by Karen
community (mostly religious) leaders who include Bud-
dhists as well as Anglican, Baptist and Catholic churchmen
and women. He also analyses community development
and humanitarian activities undertaken by a range of Kar-
en civil society groups, including the establishment of the
Karen Development Committee (KDC) in June 1994.
Over the following decade, under the leadership of Dr Si-
mon Tha, the KDC developed an innovative health care
programme. The Kwe Ka Baw clinic was originally estab-
lished in the Karen-populated northern Yangon suburb
of Insein in 1990. By establishing his clinic in the name
of Kwe Ka Baw (a limestone outcrop near Hpa-an and a
symbol of the Karen nation) Dr Simon was making an
explicitly ethnic nationalist statement. The foundation of
25
 Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
Karen Buddhist monk in Hpa-an (TK)
this first private clinic was followed by several others. Dr
Simon’s team also undertook regular mobile outreach trips
to remote parts of the country, including conflict-affected
areas of Karen State and elsewhere. Other KDC projects
included the Karen Women’s Action Group and the Rising
Sun youth group.
In April 2002 the Karen Peace Mediator Group (KPMG)
convened the first Karen Forum on Development at the
Karen State capital Hpa’an. The opening address was given
by Professor Tun Aung Chain, the retired director of the
Myanmar Historical Research Commission and a leading
member of the Union Karen community. He was also a
leading figure in the government’s National Convention, a
position which gave him the prestige and authority neces-
sary to sponsor such a sensitive event.
The revival of Karen community activism in government-
controlled areas since the late 1990s also led to the forma-
tion of the Karen Development Network (KDN), which
emerged out of the KDC in 2002 and was formally estab-
lished in 2004. Originally a loose network of individuals
drawn from a number of Karen (and later Karenni and Mon
Christian) organizations, the KDN focused particularly on
networking and training at the leadership and community
levels. It established an internationally-accredited distance-
learning Community Management Programme, imple-
mented at centres in Yangon, Moulmein, Hpa’an, Pathein,
Toungoo, Lashio, Myitkyina and elsewhere. The KDN also
convened a series of meetings (the Local Development
Forum), leading to a coordinated approach to document-
26
ing and analysing the situation and needs of internally
displaced populations in Burma.56 Several of those associ-
ated with these civil society initiatives have also engaged in
more explicitly political activities, both in terms of (neces-
sarily low-profile) contacts with border and overseas-based
groups, and through participation in aboveground politics
inside the country.
Religious ‘Mandalas’
These developments within the secular branches of Kar-
en civil and political society were mirrored by initiatives
among Christian and Buddhist networks. For centuries,
monasteries in Burma have functioned as havens of peace
and refuge, and Karen monks have long provided assistance
to members of the laity.57 In recent years in Karen State, this
has especially been the case at the DKBA’s Myaing Gyi Ngu
headquarters, and most famously at the Thamanya mon-
astery near Hpa’an. U Vinaya, late sayadaw (abbot) of this
large monastic complex, oversaw a feeding programme of
more than 10,000 people a day, supported mainly by the
donations of pilgrims. U Vinaya was an ethnic Pao, part of
the Karen ethnic family. The beneficiaries were displaced
civilians, whose residence in the Thamanya compound
protected them from forced portering and other abuses on
the part of the Tatmadaw and DKBA. Although the vener-
able 93-year-old monk passed away in December 2003, his
successors continued his work, albeit on a reduced scale.
The Thamanya monastery is an example of localised au-
tonomy, dependent upon the charismatic power of an as-
cendant civilian patron.
One of the most prominent of a younger generation of
Karen monks in such roles is U Pinya Thami, the abbot of
Taungalae monastery just north of Hpa-an. A perceptive
and charismatic individual, U Pinya Thami has been able
to mobilise the community around agricultural and other
local development projects, as well as overseeing Karen
participation in the November 2010 elections (see below).
He also played a leading role in inter-faith dialogue with
Karen Christian leaders. His influence extends throughout
central Karen State, where he is regarded as a ‘democra-
cy monk’ and something of a competitor to U Thuzana,
patron of the DKBA. As such, he has received much less
support from the government than the Myaing Gyi Ngu
sayadaw.58 Again, this religious leader’s personal patron-
age and authority are central to the creation of a zone of
relative local autonomy. In this area, he has been able to
provide some limited protection for local civilians from
the abuses of various armed groups. He has also promot-
ed community development projects and a well-regarded
(secular) school.
In addition to such indigenous actors as the KNU, civil
society leaders and the military government, external
and transnational organisations and networks may also
demonstrate mandala-like qualities. The shifting mosaic

of donors and international NGOs which constitute the
‘humanitarian industry’59 on the Thailand-Burma border
and the activist lobbying networks beyond, may be consid-
ered as a collection of often collaborating, but sometimes
competing, centres of power, the authority of which ex-
pands and/or declines according to various criteria. Like
other patrons, the influence of border-based humanitar-
ian agencies is diminished, as their clients (e.g. the KNU
and affiliates) decline in power. In the meantime - in some
DKBA-controlled areas at least (for example, Shwe Ko Ko)
- a small number of donors and NGOs have been able to
engage with local commanders, such as Col. Chit Thu, in
order to implement aid projects.
Christian churches have also been deeply involved in
community-based development activities. These include
branches of the main Baptist, Anglican and Catholic
churches, as well as a number of local congregations. Sever-
al of the more formal Karen civil society groupings have re-
ceived assistance in building their organisational capacities
from national-based civil society groups, such as the Metta
Development Foundation and Shalom Foundation.60 Some
of these church-based NGOs and CBOs were involved in
the forefront of impressive efforts undertaken by Burmese
civil society networks in responding to Cyclone Nargis in
2008 which afflicted both Burman and Karen communities
across the Irrawaddy Delta.
The 2010 Elections
Three Karen political parties participated in the 7 Novem-
ber 2010 elections. In their different ways, each has sought
to promote and protect Karen interests.61 The Karen (Kayin)
Karen men playing board game (TK)
Karen Civil and Political Society ‘Inside Myanmar’
Peoples Party (KPP) was established in early 2010. It is as-
sociated with Yangon and Irrawaddy Delta (predominantly
Christian) elites, and is positioned as an issues-based party,
designed to appeal beyond the Karen community. Several
of its leaders are retired government (including Tatmadaw)
personnel, allowing the KPP some level of protection from
state suppression, but also generating some distrust, par-
ticularly among political activists who have learned to be
suspicious of anyone connected to the government. The
KPP is perceived by some non-elite (and especially non-
Christian) Karen as dominated by Christian mission-ed-
ucated, urban intellectuals, retired state officials and busi-
ness interests. Indeed, in addition to linguistic and religious
pluralism within the Karen community, there continue to
be marked tensions between those living and working in
Karen State and those Karens in Yangon and elsewhere.
Such differences explain the formation of the Ploung-Sgaw
Democracy Party (PSDP – Ploung being an alternate spell-
ing for Pwo Karen) to contest the elections in Karen State,
and adjoining areas of Mon State, where the party enjoys
good relations with the All Mon Regions Democracy Par-
ty (AMRDP). Unlike the KPP, most PSDP members and
patrons are Buddhists. Leaders of the PSDP in particular
have expressed their anxiety regarding the limited human
resources available in Karen State and the need for capacity
building. This is also the case with the Karen State Democ-
racy and Development Party (KSDDP), which was formed
in August 2010 by elements close to the DKBA leadership
immediately after the BGF transformation.
While several Karen leaders stood for election themselves,
other key actors were more interested in persuading others
to do so in order to ‘test the waters’. Thus 2010 could be
27
 Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
characterised as an ‘election by proxy’, with various key ac-
tors and networks putting forward substitute candidates.
In contrast, many independent or anti-Tatmadaw parties
refused to contest the November elections. Extensive in-
ternational publicity was given to a boycott promoted by
the NLD and overseas-based activists. Nevertheless, 37 po-
litical parties contested the elections, including a handful
of independent candidates and some two dozen non-gov-
ernment aligned parties. These opposition parties were not
so naive as to believe the polls would be free and fair, but
they did hope that the military regime would be confident
enough in controlling the overall outcome to allow some
independent voices to be elected.
Non-government parties contesting the elections have
a long-term strategy of slowly expanding the amount of
space available to civilian political networks in order to in-
crementally change the balance of power in Burma. Many
regarded the 2010 elections as a ‘dry run’, in order to build
capacities and prepare for the next polls, due to be held
sometime in 2015. In the absence of the NLD, two main
Election leaflet of the Kayin Peoples Party (KPP)
28
urban-based, national-level opposition parties sought to
gain support among citizens opposed to continued mili-
tary rule: the National Democratic Force (NDF, an NLD
breakaway) and the Democratic Party (Myanmar). In addi-
tion, some two dozen parties ran on behalf of the country’s
diverse ethnic minority nationalities. Some of these par-
ties sought to position themselves between the government
and existing opposition groups, such as the NLD. With the
NLD boycotting the elections, the NDF and a handful of
ethnic nationality parties became the focus of hopes for
progressive change in Burma.
The turnout on November 7 was somewhere between half
and two-thirds of registered voters. It seemed by late that
evening that many non-government parties had done
remarkably well. However, in numerous instances, vote
counting was interrupted once it became apparent that
pro-government candidates were losing. Subsequently,
when the official results were announced over the com-
ing days, it became apparent that many non-government
candidates had been beaten by their pro-government op-
ponents, largely due to a massive influx of ‘advanced votes’
which were introduced late in the day. In some cases, the
number of recorded votes exceeded the total population of
registered voters, indicating that election officials panicked
when they realised that pro-military candidates would lose
and therefore stuffed the ballot boxes.62
In the final results, the pro-government USDP won 874
of the 1140 seats declared by the end of November, giving
them firm control of the two national-level assemblies. The
big losers on November 7 were the NDF, which succeeded
in gaining only 16 seats. However, even taking into account
the 25% of seats reserved for the military, pro-government
parties did not have a stranglehold on all of the seven eth-
nic state assemblies. In fact, a number of ethnic nationality
parties performed well in the elections. The party with the
third-largest number of seats (57) is the Shan Nationali-
ties Democracy Party, with Rakhine, Mon, Chin, Pao and
Karen parties also winning a significant number of seats.
In many cases, these small parties gained clusters of seats
in their ethnic homelands, providing them with regional
representation and potential influence.
Among the Karen parties, the PSDP gained nine seats
(three in the upper house, two in the lower house and four
in Karen State assembly). The PSDP’s relatively good show-
ing owed much to voter education and local organisational
efforts at the grassroots, undertaken by Karen youth during
the run-up to the elections. The KPP gained six seats (one
in the upper house, one in the lower house and four in Kar-
en State). Several KPP candidates were disappointed not
to do better, especially in the Irrawaddy Delta and Tenas-
serim Region. Finally, although they received less public-
ity than the other two parties, the DKBA-aligned KSDDP
gained one seat each in the upper house and Karen State.
The successful KSDDP candidates included one each from
the DKBA and KPF, including the latter’s vice-chairman
 Karen Civil and Political Society ‘Inside Myanmar’

TABLE 2: Karen Political Parties Contesting the 2010 Elections (Does not include Karen members of USDP and other parties.)

Name Formation Orientation Leader Seats

[successful candidates
November 7 2010
election]
Ploung-Sgaw 2010 Karen State-based; Khin Maung Myint Upper House [Na-
Democracy Party strong networks tional Assembly]: 3
in Buddhist and Lower House [Peo-
Christian communi- ple’s Assembly]: 2
ties; independent of Karen State: 4
government total: 9

Karen Peoples Party 2010 Yangon and Bago Re- Tun Aung Myint Upper House: 1
gions and Irrawaddy Lower House: 1
Delta-based; networks State/Region: 4
among mostly Chris- total: 6
tian elites; indepen-
dent of government
Karen State 2010 Formed after incorpo- Tha Htoo Kyaw Upper House: 1
Democracy and ration of most DKBA Lower House: 0
Development Party and KPF units into Karen State: 1
Tatmadaw-controlled total: 2
BGF; aligned with
government

Aung Tin Myint. The influential ex-KNU Forestry Minis- be tempted by the fruits of office (including the possibili-
ter, P’doh Aung San, who defected in 1998, was elected for ties of corruption) and, lacking experience, their vocation
the USDP. as future democrats is not assured.

While some Karen and other observers have decried the
lack of election unity within the community (illustrated
by three separate parties contesting the polls), others sug-
gested that this diversity was strategically wise. Any alli-
ance of non-government groups - particularly among the
Karen community, elements of which are still at war with
the Tatmadaw - is likely to be perceived by the government
as a threat. By dividing up the political community, Karen
nationalists may be able to coordinate their positions with-
out being perceived as a threat by Tatmadaw leaders.
In late November 2010, the government announced mea-
sures restricting certain freedoms of speech in parlia-
ment.63 Nevertheless ethnic nationality parties in several
of the state assemblies should be able to scrutinise - and
sometimes even block - future legislation. Furthermore
in the ethnic states, many USDP candidates come from
minority communities and enjoy long-standing relation-
ships with members of ethnic nationality parties. Thus an
important indicator of future political freedoms will be
whether, and to what degree, ethnic nationality candidates
will be pressured or co-opted into following the USDP-
Tatmadaw /military line, or whether in some cases they
will use the space created by their election to give voice
to their communities, gaining access to improved services
for their electorates. Such opportunities are not without
their potential pitfalls: successful candidates are likely to
In January 2011 the PSDP joined four other ethnic politi-
cal parties in calling on the international community to lift
economic sanctions on Burma and for the government to
announce a general amnesty to illustrate that “the process
of democratic transition has begun”. The ethnic parties
thereby indicated that they understand how to engage on
key issues in a constructive manner, charting a course in-
dependent of both the NLD and the government. Sources
close to the PSDP leadership say that they wish to remain
independent of both pro- and anti-government parties,
while seeking to work for development in Karen-populated
areas and building capacities for the future. Nevertheless,
in February two PSDP elected representatives were ap-
pointed as Kayin State ministers, together with one each
from the KPP and KSDDP, one from the AMRDP, three
from the USDP, and one Tatmadaw appointee.64
The political rules and landscape in Burma remain very un-
certain, as the country embarks on its first period of elected
and multi-party government since 1962. Given the possi-
bility of the four PSDP, KPP and AMRDP representatives
working together, and likewise the four USDP-Tatmadaw
appointees, it seemed that the (presumably pro-govern-
ment) KSDDP might hold the notional balance-of-power
in Karen State, at least in relation to the State assemblies’
highly circumscribed powers.

29
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Humanitarian Issues

Given the lack of accurate data regarding basic demo-

graphics in the country, it is not surprising that reliable
humanitarian indicators are unavailable for many areas.
The dearth of reliable information is especially acute in
conflict-affected areas, to which the government and in-
ternational agencies have limited access, such as southeast
Burma. An Integrated Household Living Conditions As-
sessment conducted by the UN during 2003-5 (a sanitised
version of which was published in 2007)65 found 32% of the
population of Burma living below the poverty line, with
approximately 75% of household income spent on food.
The survey also identified wide regional disparities; for
example, 73% of people in the Chin State were living in
poverty.66 The analysis confirmed that the situation is par-
ticularly dire for people living in areas currently or recently
affected by armed conflict.

Other country-wide problems include lack of access to

health and education services, or to safe drinking water
or adequate sanitation. As a result of deep-rooted poverty,
approximately one third of children under-five in Burma
are moderately malnourished and 9.4% severely malnour-
ished. Widespread poverty is also associated with low lev-
els of school enrolment and high drop-out rates. Despite
these indicators, Burma remains what Mark Duffield has
called an ‘aid orphan’, receiving far less foreign assistance
per capita than comparable countries (e.g. Cambodia or
Laos).67

Humanitarian Assistance in Southeast Burma

Humanitarian assistance to vulnerable Karen civilians in

Burma is provided by local agencies, some of which receive
substantial international support.68 Cross-border groups,
working out of Thailand, have access to IDP populations
in areas of ongoing armed conflict, as well as to some com-
munities in ‘mixed administration’ and government-con-
trolled areas. Most assistance is short-term relief (mainly
medical assistance and cash to purchase food), which is
delivered according to need and monitored by local staff.
Cross-border groups are not neutral, most being the wel-
fare wings of the KNU or allied insurgent groups. Howev-
er, some cross-border groups operate more independently;
for example, those working in the field of education.

The advocacy activities of Thailand-based groups generally

take the form of documenting and denouncing Tatmadaw
and DKBA human rights abuses. Data on IDPs is accu-
rate, but only includes a sub-group of the vulnerable civil-
ian population; i.e. those who make themselves available
to armed conflict actors. Public advocacy reports do not
analyse the relationship between assistance and the armed
conflict. These documents tend to portray the civilian
population as victims of the Tatmadaw and government,

30
 Humanitarian Issues

usually without acknowledging the role of KNU and other

anti-government forces as conflict actors.

Meanwhile, a handful of international NGOs working in-

side government-controlled Burma provide fairly substan-
tial assistance to displaced and other vulnerable popula-
tions in the southeast of the country. This mostly consists
of healthcare and community-based development activi-
ties, with occasional relief supplies. In order to maintain
access, such assistance has to remain low profile, with local
access and modes of delivery managed by national staff.

A range of civil society actors, including CBOs and local or

national NGOs based out of government-controlled areas,
also have access to the conflict-affected southeast, including
to IDPs and adjacent communities affected by conflict. In
most cases, beneficiaries live in government and/or cease-

Water pump in Mae La refugee camp (HvdB)

fire group-controlled areas, with some limited numbers in
areas of ongoing armed conflict. In many cases, these are
faith-based (Christian but also Buddhist) networks. Even
more than for international NGOs, the activities of these
civil society groups have to remain low profile. Assistance
consists of local development projects and some relief ac-
tivities, including health and education programmes. Lo-
cal agencies have limited capacities to deliver assistance
in technical sectors, such as healthcare, although they can
play an important role in public health activities. In the fu-
ture, they are likely to remain vulnerable to restriction or
suppression by the state agencies of the USDP-Tatmadaw
government.
and funding, and on those humanitarian agencies support-
While Thailand-based and cross-border agencies can be ing the refugee camps for logistical support and the politi-
forthright in their data-collection and advocacy activities, cal cover to operate ‘under-the-radar’ in Thailand. Future
groups working inside the country must be more cautious. constraints on each of these actors will mean that cross-
With some exceptions, advocacy activities are in the mode border aid operations will probably have less influence and
of ‘persuasion’ (engaging behind-the-scenes with power- reach in the coming years. However, changes are likely to
holders in order to modify - or mitigate the impacts - of be gradual rather than sudden, and the proximity of some
their behaviour) and ‘mobilisation’ (quietly sharing infor- vulnerable populations to Thailand, combined with the
mation with mandated agencies and mobilising human logistical difficulty of reaching them from inside Burma,
rights-oriented actors). As the information and advocacy mean that cross-border delivery of services will continue
activities of groups based in Burma have to remain low- to be relevant.
profile, they tend to be under-appreciated by political lob-
bying groups, especially outside the country.
The Refugee Regime
Most civil society networks operating in the conflict-affect-
ed southeast are vulnerable to exposure and possible sup- The first semi-permanent refugee settlements in Thailand
pression by the authorities. Among other dangers, NGOs were established in Tak Province in 1984, as Karen civilians
in Karen and other conflict-affected areas can be exposed fled from fighting and human rights abuses in Burma.69
to danger through contact with international – and espe- The Royal Thai Government (RTG) allowed these people
cially high-visibility UN - agencies. temporary refuge, so long as the task of providing basic as-
sistance was taken up by a small number of international
It is probable that the scope for cross-border activities will NGOs.
be reduced in the years to come, or at least radically trans-
formed in nature, especially if any repatriation of refugees In the early years, most Karen refugees initially fled with
from Thailand goes ahead. Cross-border operations rely their KNU-orientated community structures more-or-less
on armed groups to provide access to territory in Burma, intact. Aid agencies therefore considered it most efficient
on the broader advocacy movement to promote human to deal with these people through refugee committees es-
rights and democracy in Burma and to leverage support tablished by the KNU. This approach also suited the Thai

31
Horse and mule teams carry relief supplies in northern Karen State (FBR) Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
authorities’ desire for a low-key solution to the crisis, as the
RTG did not want to repeat the large-scale international
refugee-oriented intervention that had occurred in the
late 1970s and 1980s on the Cambodian and Lao borders.
The NGOs, meanwhile, hoped to avoid imposing alien
structures upon the refugees and to avoid creating ‘aid
dependency’ among them.70 From the outset, therefore,
border-based humanitarian agencies worked through the
insurgent-nominated refugee committees.
In the late 1980s the main NGO consortium assisting the
refugees was reorganised, as the Burmese Border Consor-
tium (BBC); in 2004 it was re-named the Thailand Burma
Border Consortium (TBBC). As well as the officially-reg-
istered NGOs, by the 1990s a number of small, unofficial
groups had emerged which undertook a wide range of
mostly small-scale relief and development activities, in-
cluding programmes directed at Burmese migrant labour-
ers in Thailand. Many are engaged in advocacy work, such
as the documentation and denunciation of human rights
abuses perpetrated by government forces, but very rarely
by opposition groups.
In 1984 most of those involved had assumed that the Kar-
en refugee crisis, and the resulting international response,
would be short-lived. However, throughout the 1980s and
1990s a humanitarian and human rights industry grew up
along the border, under the umbrella of the refugee relief
regime, following the continued and growing influx of Kar-
en refugees into Thailand. The NGOs, and in particular the
[T]BBC, provided aid via indigenous refugee committees,
such as the KNU-administered Karen Refugee Committee
(KRC).71 This arrangement was based on the (generally un-
32
examined) assumption that the KNU was the sole legiti-
mate representative of the Karen people, and therefore the
KRC was the appropriate body to represent and administer
the refugee population.72
In January 2011, the refugee caseload verified by TBBC
was 141,549 people, living in nine camps strung out along
the middle section of the border. The previous three years
had been marked by the resettlement of some 30,000 Kar-
en and other Burmese refugees to third countries abroad.
The acceptance of Karen refugees for resettlement in the
West (particularly North America, but also Australia and
Europe) signalled that donor countries considered it un-
likely that any resolution to Burma’s complex state-society
and armed conflicts would be achieved soon. Despite the
resettlement programme however, new arrivals continued
to enter the camps at more-or-less ‘replacement level’. At
the same time, moves were afoot in some Thai circles to
consider sending the refugees back to Burma.73
Aid, Legitimacy and Conflict
Since the nineteenth century, international actors have
played various roles in mediating ideas of Karen national-
ism. To the present day, international NGOs supplying the
refugee camps in Thailand have empowered camp admin-
istrations dominated by a self-selecting, Sgaw-speaking,
largely Baptist elite, which the aid agencies accepted as the
refugees’ natural and legitimate representatives. For most
of the history of the camps, they have been dominated by
KNU-affiliated authorities, most of whom were male and
Christian.

Fiona Terry74 observes that in the process of negotiating
access to needy populations, humanitarian actors often
serve to legitimize non-state groups, whose cause they per-
ceive as just. Likewise, Mark Duffield75 analyses the ways in
which relief aid can “reinforce the dominant relations and
forms of … legitimacy [and] political recognition” among
the local authorities it engages with.
The position of ‘solidarity’ with the suffering people of
Burma, adopted by many Thailand and overseas-based
agencies, does not necessarily contradict the humanitarian
principle of ‘impartiality’.76 Indeed, it may be necessary to
adopt more-or-less explicitly political positions in order to
address the often political causes of humanitarian vulner-
ability, rather than merely responding to immediate needs.
However, such positions mean that most aid agencies
operating along the border are far from ‘neutral’ in their
relationship to the military and political situation and in
Burma. Rather, their interventions empowered one side to
the armed conflict.
Thousands of personnel of the KNU/KNLA, and/or their
families, continue to receive shelter in and supplies from
the camps. While this may not be the purpose of interna-
Families in hiding in aftermath of Burma Army operation (FBR)
Humanitarian Issues
tional NGOs and their donors in assisting the refugees,
access to such resources supports the KNLA’s continued
operations across the border. The refugee camps in Thai-
land have provided refuge to the victims of the civil war
and unofficial base areas for the KNU and other armed
groups. The existence of the refugees - and of two or three
million other internally and externally displaced Burmese
- provided testimony to the abuses of the military govern-
ment, while the KNU’s loose control over elements of this
civilian population bestowed a certain legitimacy on the
insurgency.77
Thailand-based NGOs have generally failed to investigate
the impacts of foreign aid on the conflict in Burma - not
only between the military government and the KNU, but
also on relations between various Karen actors. Humani-
tarian agencies’ rice and rhetoric have supported the KNU’s
militarised nation-building agenda, during a period when
the Karen insurgency was becoming increasingly driven
from within the refugee camps. In part, this naivety may
be explained by the lack of internationally experienced hu-
manitarian professionals along the border in the 1980s and
1990s, when few aid workers had comparative experience
of refugee situations in other parts of the world.
33
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Contested Legitimacies

The traditional pattern of governance and state-formation

in the southeastern borderlands of Burma has been similar
to that in other peripheral areas of South-East Asia. Fol-
lowing the introduction of Theravada Buddhism in the
first millennium CE/AD, emergent leaders constructed
fiefdoms, mobilising populations through a combination
of violence and other forms of coercion. This was often
achieved by controlling access to licit and illicit natural re-
sources and trading opportunities, and via claims to legiti-
mate authority.

The concept of mandala is helpful to conceptualising zones

of authority in pre-colonial Southeast Asia. Mandala78 are ra-
diating zones of personalised authority, the power of which
declines towards the geographic and symbolic periphery of
the governed population or territory. As local rulers con-
solidated their authority, their associated mandala expand-
ed in scope and cultural-symbolic significance, attracting
increasing numbers of followers. The degree of often very
loose control exercised by such princelings (minor princes)
tended to decline with distance from the symbolic centre of
power.79 Various principalities often enjoyed overlapping
claims of sovereignty in a particular area, or over certain
populations and/or types of resources. While their chief-
tains were often in conflict, loose alliances also emerged
between different mandala. The key to the fulfilment of
patron-client obligations was power, and the various strata
of society were loosely integrated in a series of fluctuating
patrimonial relations. Thus the princeling-warlord stood
in a patron-client relationship to his followers or subjects.

In this political culture, the exercise of power provided its

own legitimisation. To assume the throne was to exemplify
merit. Especially if he was the leader of a peasant rebellion,
the emergent strong-man generally claimed legitimacy as a
charismatic min laung (pretender to Buddhist kinghood).
Stability emerges in such a system, when a ruler is able to
establish control over lesser princes. Petty chieftains sought
to secure their authority and prestige through accepting
vassal status vis-à-vis, and paying tribute to, a greater pow-
er, be it more powerful local prince or a firmly established
lowland kingdom.80

The Politics of Legitimacy

Most senior KNU leaders demonstrate an ideological com-

mitment to a combination of nationalism and democracy,
positioned within the framework of liberal capitalism. Pre-
viously, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, the or-
ganisation adopted a more left-wing ‘national democratic’
ideology.81

By the 1970s, the KNU had abandoned ideas of an inde-

pendent (secessionist) Kawthoolei, in favour of a feder-

34

The Romance of ‘Zomia’
An alternative conceptualisation of the KNU and other
non-state actors’ forms of governance valorises their
semi-autonomous zones of authority as spaces of re-
sistance to the oppressive and predatory lowland state.
Such notions derive in part from an historical analysis
of processes of state-formation in Southeast Asia, and
the transnational and transitional lacunae between
these. Perhaps most celebrated among such perspectives
is James Scott’s82 adaptation of Van Schendel’s notion of
‘Zomia’.83
Understanding state and non-state spaces to be mutu-
ally constitutive, Scott describes the latter as sites of
‘anarchist autonomy’. His account focuses primarily on
the pre-modern era, before the closure of the Southeast
Asian ‘land frontier’. This was a time when flight from
the lowland state, up into the hills, was feasible for large
numbers of people, who thus came to be identified as
‘ethnic minorities’.
Unfortunately, such analysis easily lends itself to a ro-
manticisation of non-state spaces as sites of ‘resistance’,
while underplaying the manner in which such zones are
themselves sites of often violent contests for power. In-
deed, Scott’s analysis is strangely apolitical, rarely taking
account of elite positions or the influences of socio-eco-
nomic interests. Instead, the valorisation of non-state
spaces serves to perpetuate the myth of ‘heroic freedom
fighters’ in the hills of Burma. Scott’s analysis neverthe-
less indicates an important dimension of conflict in
southeast Burma: that many Karen and other civilians
desire above all else to be left alone, to pursue their lives
in peace.
alist platform, epitomised by the organisation’s status as
founding member of the pan-ethnic insurgent NDF. By
the 1980s, the KNU was articulating a position that “the
Karen revolution is a fight for self-determination and true
democracy.”84 Today, the KNU continues to appeal to val-
ues, such as “private ownership … democratic rights, po-
litically, economically, socially and culturally. Freedom and
equality of all religions is guaranteed.”85 Furthermore, “we
strongly believe in the Charter of the United Nations, its
Declaration on Human Rights, the principle of Self-Deter-
mination and the Democratic Rights of Peoples.”86
According to Gravers,87 the KNU struggle involves the con-
struction of a “pan-Karen global and cosmopolitan iden-
tity.” In this, the KNU has been supported by a network
of Thailand- and overseas-based (transnational) activists
and lobbyists, with linkages to the Burmese opposition-in-
exile that emerged following the suppression of the 1988
democracy protests and the SLORC junta’s refusal to rec-
ognise the results of the 1990 elections. Exile groups have
played important roles in patronising certain elements
Contested Legitimacies
of the KNU, and influencing the organisation’s positions
on a range of issues, including its support for certain ex-
ile political formations.88 Indeed, the (then) KNU Foreign
Affairs Secretary, David Taw89 has described how in 1993
exile Burmese politicians prevailed upon Gen. Bo Mya not
to pursue a ceasefire with the military government, be-
cause they expected the ‘international community’ to sup-
port the KNU and its exile allies in a diplomatic campaign
against the SLORC, thus hastening victory for the opposi-
tion alliance.
From the 1960s, and especially from the 1970s through
the 1980s after the organisation jettisoned most of its left-
ist policies, the KNU derived support through its role as
a ‘buffer’ between communist insurgents in Thailand and
Burma. The KNU consolidated a strong anti-communist
identity, which made it a useful minor (and unacknowl-
edged) ally of the US during the Cold War. However, with
the collapse of communism in Southeast Asia, the KNU’s
geo-strategic importance - and thus its value as a strategic
player - declined. In some ways, the organisation can be
seen as a remnant of the Cold War years.
In addition to Thai (and by proxy, American) business and
security interests, foreign influences on the KNU came to
include Western aid agencies and donors, many of which
were mobilised through transnational networks. Material
support has generally been provided in the form of refugee
and IDP relief, which since the 1980s has become a major
‘humanitarian industry’.90
As the KNU lost control of its once-extensive ‘liberated
zones’ in the 1980s and 1990s, foreign aid insulated the
organisation and its supporters from the realities of life
in Burma. The camps in Thailand provided refuge to the
victims of the civil war as well as to personnel and fam-
ily members of the KNU and other armed groups. This
was a significant, although unintended, development in
the KNU’s increasingly dependent relationship with inter-
national patrons. The existence of the refugees provided
testimony to the abuses of the military government, while
the KNU’s loose control over this civilian population be-
stowed some legitimacy on the insurgency back over the
frontier.91
The refugee camps also brought Karen networks in closer
contact with Western visitors and influences. Since the
nineteenth century, international actors have played vari-
ous roles in mediating ideas of Karen nationalism, often
associated with a strong Christian identity.92 From the
early 1980s international NGOs began supplying the refu-
gee camps in Thailand and (later, and to a lesser extent)
displaced people across the border. Such interventions
have empowered the KNU’s Sgaw dialect-speaking, largely
Christian (mostly Baptist) KNU elite, which the aid agen-
cies accepted unquestioningly as representative of a lin-
guistically and religiously diverse Karen community. No
doubt unwittingly, foreign donors and aid agencies thereby
35
 Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
reinforced the KNU’s identification of Karen nationalism
with Christianity and related ideas of ‘modernity’ and
‘progress’.93
Since the 1960s, the KNU leadership has reproduced an
essentialised and stylised form of Sgaw Christian culture
as the authentic expression of Karen identity. This ‘Sgaw-
ization’ of Karen society in the borderlands and refugee
camps resembled aspects of the central state’s Burmanisa-
tion of national culture, for which the military government
has been criticized by ethno-nationalist opposition groups
and activists.94 This phenomenon helps to explain the frus-
tration felt by many non-Christian Karen, and thus the
emergence of the DKBA.95
The DKBA emerged in the mid-1990s in the context of the
fragmentation of the once-dominant KNU mandala. Un-
like the KNU, which remains orientated towards external
patronage, the DKBA looked to support from the military
government, which has been a jealous suzerain, prone
to violent, punitive and disciplinary campaigns. Sixteen
years after its foundation, the DKBA (and DKBA BGFs)
remains detached from international networks, in part due
to most commanders’ lack of English language skills and
their non-Christian faiths. Furthermore, the DKBA does
not reproduce the liberal democratic, rights-oriented dis-
course favoured by international donors and dominant in
the mainstream fields of security and protection, on which
foreign patronage is generally conditional. Therefore, al-
though they enjoy considerable influence at the commu-
nity level (and in relation to the government), the DKBA
and other non-liberal actors tend to be marginalised in
international discourse and practice.
KNU leaders Soe Soe, Kaserdoh, Bo Mya and Htoo Htoo Lay in Mae Sot in 2004 (HvdB)
36
Claims to legitimate authority beyond the KNU’s decreas-
ing circle of influence have tended to rely on a combination
of coercion and other forms of violence, the purchase of
loyalty, and appeal to traditional values. For DKBA field
commanders, legitimacy derives from their roles as local
strongmen, whose exercise of power is proof of legitimacy,
and as guardians and protectors of non-Christian (particu-
larly Buddhist) Karen religion, and non-Sgaw (particularly
Pwo speaking) Karen dialects. Indeed, DKBA leaders have
reportedly demanded that the Eastern Pwo dialect be rec-
ognised as the official language of Karen State.
As Ingrid Jordt observes regarding legitimisation in Burma,
understandings of “political authority … must be situated
from the point of view of the governed.”96 Although the
DKBA was a fragmentary organisation, often acting as a
proxy for the Tatmadaw, its leaders nevertheless have made
(often implicit) claims to legitimacy which seem to reso-
nate with sections of the Karen community. This approach
is illustrated by Col. Chit Thu of the 999 Special Battalion,
who has ‘vowed’ that he will promote and protect the Kar-
en peoples’ “existence, foundation, culture and tradition,
our heredity, religion, way of life and convention.”97 Such
agendas may be characterised as ‘modernist’, inasmuch as
individual DKBA commanders like Chit Thu promote a
‘top-down’ model of economic development.
Other appeals to legitimisation are not couched in the
rational-bureaucratic, rights-based language and rationale
familiar to and sponsored by the international humanitari-
an and human rights community. Rather, the DKBA’s agen-
da resonates within non-westernised elements of the Karen
community. According to Gravers98, the “zone of peace and
 Contested Legitimacies

Buddhist merit [as devised by the Thamanya and Myaing

Gyi Nyu sayadaws] is probably still a model, that can at-
tract Karen across denominations and intra-ethnic bound-
aries.”

Under these traditional forms of governance, the superior

power (the king, or in this case, Tatmadaw commanders)
has an interest in ensuring that tributary powers (e.g. the
DKBA) do not gather too much strength to themselves,
thus challenging the authority of the centre. It is for this
reason that the military government has regularly rotated
powerful regional commanders in order to ensure that
they do not consolidate too much local control. Such con-
cerns also explain the government’s move in 2009-10 to
incorporate the DKBA and other non-state armed groups
into Tatmadaw-controlled Border Guard Forces. With the
acceptance by most DKBA leaders of the BGF order, the

Poster of ‘Karen National Leaders’

future military and political influence of the organisation
on Karen society is likely to diminish.

Beyond the Mainstream

In such a contested and violent political and economic

sphere, the DKBA has not been unique among non-KNU
Karen armed groups. Earlier claims to the status of cus-
todian and legitimate political vanguard of ‘traditional’
Karen ethno-culture were, for example, made in the 1970s
by the religious sect, the Telecon and other traditionally-
oriented movements.99 However, observers have generally
regarded such traditionally-oriented movements as histor-
ical or cultural oddities. The Telecon and other millenar-
ian groups have not been deemed serious political actors,
in part because such groups have expressed their concerns
and aspirations, and organized their activities, according to
traditional conceptions of power.
At least two branches of the long-haired Telecon sect exist
in the villages of Kyain Seikkyi and Kawkareik townships
where the KNLA Sixth and parts of the Seventh Brigade
operate or control territory. The majority of the original
40-plus Telecon villages of Kyain Seikkyi fled to the border
in the late 1990s, as a result of Tatmadaw offensives against
the KNU. The Telecon sect was founded in the mid-19th
century by a charismatic spiritual leader, the Poo Kyaik.
While acknowledging the importance of the historical
Buddha (Gautama), the Telecon look toward the coming
of a ‘white monk’, who will prepare the way for the future
Buddha-to-come (Arimettaya). In the meantime, members
of the cult, who include both Sgaw and Pwo speakers, ob-
serve numerous taboos and perform various rituals associ-
ated with the Karen animist heritage. Telecon leaders have
at times positioned themselves as the ‘true’ Karen, guard-
ians of the ancient heritage in opposition to the modernist
KNU. Until quite recently, Telecon monks in the Kawkar-
eik area engaged in military activities, especially during the
full-moon period, when their purity and magical practices
were considered to make them invulnerable. With the aid
of various supernatural entities, including life-size, animat-
ed statues, they have occasionally engaged the Tatmadaw,
but with mixed success.100
In the KNLA Sixth Brigade area in 1972, the ninth Poo
Kyaik (ninth in succession from the sect’s founder) explic-
itly challenged the KNU for local leadership of the Karen
nationalist community, calling the Telecon the only cultur-
ally ‘pure’ Karen and denouncing the KNU’s misguided
leadership. Having been invited to the brigade headquar-
ters for talks, a dozen Telecon leaders were put on trial and
executed on the order of the Sixth Brigade Commander.
Millenarian tendencies have also emerged in Karen com-
munities further to the south, in the Tenasserim Region
where the KNLA Fourth Brigade is based. ‘God’s Army’,
or ‘The Soldiers of the Holy Mountain’, was formed in the
immediate aftermath of the major Tatmadaw offensive
against the KNU in February 1997. Following the col-
lapse of the mainstream Kaw Thoo Lei forces, villagers and
KNLA remnants rallied around two twelve year old twins,
Johnny and Luther Htoo, who led their followers to some
surprising, if minor victories, in armed clashes with gov-
ernment troops.
Guided - or manipulated - by local Karen elders, the twins
and their 200-strong, rag-tag militia enjoyed some noto-
riety in the Thai and international media. However, God’s
Army eventually broke up under pressure from the Thai
authorities, following a bloody siege of a hospital in Ratch-
aburi in Thailand in January 2000.101

37
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
Following their surrender to the Thai authorities in 2000,
the Htoo twins were quietly settled at Don Yang refugee
camp near Sangkhlaburi, where they later married and had
children of their own. In June 2006 government intelli-
gence operatives persuaded Johnny to return to Burma.
The Reorientation of Karen Armed Networks
As the power and degree of territorial control enjoyed by
the KNU has declined since the 1980s, so too has its abil-
ity to enforce a minimum degree of compliance upon neo-
patrimonial strongmen operating on the peripheries of its
shrinking fields of influence. The authority of the old insur-
gent mandalas had at one time permeated most Thailand-
Burma border areas. By the 1990s though, the Tatmadaw
and government constituted the dominant centre of power
in these contested zones.
The DKBA phenomenon is a prime example of the manner
in which armed groups and networks along the Thailand-
Burma border, which were once under the loose authority
of the insurgent mandala, have been re-oriented as clients
of the Tatmadaw. For example, in the late 1990s, in KNU
Leh Deh Soe Township (northern Tenasserim Region), a
Karen strongman named Da Bleh emerged as an ally of lo-
cal Burma Army commanders. The Tatmadaw had greatly
expanded its presence in the area, as a result of the con-
struction of the Yadana gas pipeline.102 Local Burma Army
commanders were largely content to let Da Bleh’s militia
provide security in the southern sector of the ‘pipeline cor-
ridor’, which in practice meant denying the KNLA Fourth
Brigade access to the area. With his authority enhanced by
Tatmadaw patronage, Da Bleh was able to impose a degree
of stability in his area of control and began to attract some
displaced villagers to settle in what amounted to an unof-
ficial ceasefire zone. Around this time, a handful of Karen
National Defence Organisation (KNDO - KNU ‘home
guard’) soldiers defected to Da Bleh’s militia and began
working with him on local logging deals. Following some
internal disputes regarding the division of revenues, the
ex-KNDO men decided to move against Da Bleh. During
the conflict, militia men loyal to Da Bleh burnt down the
ex-KNDO contingents’ camp. On 6 March 2001 the latter
retaliated, attacking Da Bleh’s house and killing him, his
wife and son.
Another example of changing loyalties on the front-lines of
conflict is provided by the case of Lt-Col. Thu Mu Hae and
the Karen Peace Force (a.k.a. Hongtharong Special Region).
Since the late 1980s, Thu Mu Hae’s Sixteenth Battalion had
operated more-or-less independently of Brig-Gen. Shwe
Hser’s KNLA Sixth Brigade headquarters. Officials from
the mainstream KNU could only enter Thu Mu Hae’s area
of control in Kawkareik Township, if accompanied by fifty-
plus soldiers. Thu Mu Hae’s battalion was in effect a private
warlord army, which acknowledged the symbolic leader-
ship of the KNU, but was by no means under its control.
38
Until the late 1990s, it suited both parties to maintain the
fiction that Thu Mu Hae and his followers were part of the
KNU. However, in February 1997 the Tatmadaw launched
a major offensive against the remaining KNU strongholds
in the Fourth and Sixth Brigade areas. Thu Mu Hae quickly
switched his allegiance to the Tatmadaw, allowing it to gain
control of much of the Sixth Brigade area (KNU Duplaya
District) without encountering organised resistance.
The fall of Duplaya District caused a mass exodus of refu-
gees to flee into Thailand. The following month, Thu Mu
Hae was featured on Burmese state television in a ceremony
during which his men (few of whom had been forewarned)
handed over their weapons to SLORC Vice-Chairman,
Gen. Maung Aye. In exchange for his compliance, Thu
Mu Hae’s newly-formed KPF was given control over three
ceasefire zones: near Kyain Seikkyi, in the Three Pagodas
Pass area, and near Kyaikdon in central Duplaya District.
The group was also granted various, mostly small-scale,
business concessions. This arrangement served to further
divide the Karen armed groups, not least by setting up a
rivalry in lower Karen State between the KPF and another
government client, the DKBA.
A further example is provided by the defection of elements
of the KNLA’s Seventh Brigade on February 11 2007, when
the elderly brigade commander, Brig-Gen. Htein Maung,
split from the KNU to make a separate peace with the
government. Following the death of his old ally and pa-
tron (and Seventh-day Adventist co-religionist), the KNU
strongman Gen. Bo Mya, Htein Maung and his advisers
sought to make a ceasefire in their area of influence in
central Karen State in the name of the KNU-KNLA Peace
Council. The Peace Council has since initiated relief and
community development projects in areas under its influ-
ence, with some international assistance.103
The post-armed conflict landscape in Karen-populated
areas could hardly be described as ‘peace’. Along most
of the Thailand border, the Tatmadaw still operated as a
marauding army, terrorizing local populations. Practices
such as forced labour, extra-judicial arrests and punish-
ments carried out against perceived opponents remained
widespread.104 Furthermore, in areas of ‘mixed administra-
tion’, overlapping centres of power still exert authority (and
extract resources) from villagers. Even in areas of greater
stability, day-to-day life for most people is a struggle for
survival in the face of deteriorating local economies, and
systematic injustices and structural violence, perpetrated
by a range of predatory power-holders. However, some
pockets of relative stability and civility exist in the form of
local zones of influence (and indeed of safety), exercised
by non-military patrons, especially charismatic religious
leaders. These civilian networks represent an alternative set
of relationships and axes of authority to the armed groups
and networks that still dominate many aspects of daily life.
In summary, the Karen State had ceasefires but it did not
have peace.
 The Moei River, with Karen State on the left side (TK)

39
Contested Legitimacies
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Karen Politics in a Time of

Change

For many Karen nationalists, the KNU enjoys a special sta-

tus as the vanguard party of ‘the revolution’. Karen civilians
have a range of opinions regarding different conflict actors.
Many express considerable sympathy for the KNU as rep-
resenting ‘our people’. Such views are particularly common
among Christian Karens, but are also shared by many Bud-
dhists and animists.105 However many of the same people
also expressed dismay regarding the impact that KNU ac-
tions have on villagers’ safety.106

The organisation’s long and desperate struggle also gives it

a symbolic weight in Burmese politics, beyond the KNU’s
actual military and political capacities. Nevertheless, the
KNU’s authority is in steep decline. Although its support-
ers may attempt to present the organisation as the sole
legitimate representative of the Karen people, such pre-
sumptions are not necessarily shared by the wider Karen
community. Indeed because of defections and breakaways
by groups still claiming KNU legacies, many Karen people
in front-line areas question which among the competing
factions actually is the KNU.

Particularly notable are contrasts between the KNU central

leadership based in the Thai border town of Mae Sot and
the organisation's District administrations inside Burma,
some of which are characterised by fairly high levels of
political dynamism. Meanwhile, it seems that the DKBA’s
widespread use of coercion and arbitrary taxation and con-
scription tactics, employed in its 2009 campaign against the
KNU, is widely resented by people living in the border ar-
eas. Indeed it is unlikely that the DKBA can continue with
this strategy in the future, as to do so would risk depopu-
lating the areas under its control, as civilians flee, unable to
bear increased demands for taxation and recruits.

Furthermore, following its 2010 transformation into gov-

ernment-controlled BGFs, it is questionable whether such
an entity as the DKBA continues to exist, beyond those
elements of the organisation that refused to comply. It re-
mains to be seen whether ex-DKBA BGF leaders can (or
are interested in trying to) reinvent themselves and their
organisation in a way which generates positive support
from at least some elements of the Karen community. The
ex-DKBA BGF battalions (or individual commanders)
may make appeals to locally-relevant aspects of legitimacy,
based on ‘traditional Karen values’ rather than on Western-
originated norms of democracy and human rights. For ex-
ample, DKBA Brigade 999 Commander Pah Nwe has in
the past been ordained as a monk and is well known for
building pagodas in areas under his control.

Regardless of whether such a transformation is conceiv-

able, it seems clear that the KNU’s historic attempt to re-
configure Kawthoolei as a ‘modern’ state, based on uni-

40

versal, international norms has failed - or at least badly
faltered. The KNU’s failure was prefigured in the manner
in which its field commanders have, for many years, tended
to act as neo-patrimonial warlords, in the areas under their
control. Despite the rhetoric produced by its headquarters
leadership, and reproduced by international supporters,
the KNU has focused more on developing positions (pro-
human rights and democracy, anti-military dictatorship
and drugs) than ensuring that day-to-day governance in
the areas under its control reflected such values. More fun-
damentally, the organisation has been encouraged through
Western support to believe that the international commu-
nity would make good on the promise to promote democ-
racy in Burma through support of the KNU’s nation/state-
building goals. Although, among the peoples in Southeast
Asia without a state, the Karen have come closest to estab-
lishing their own de facto para-state, in 2011 this dream
seems further away than ever.
Over the past two decades the KNU has become highly de-
pendent on foreign support in terms of humanitarian and
symbolic assistance. The KNU has also become depen-
dent on the existence of refugee camps, and supply lines
to Thailand. It seems likely that the camps will eventually
be closed, for three inter-linked reasons: firstly, depopula-
tion as a result of overseas resettlement, particularly to the
USA (which generally removes better-educated refugees
and many KNU cadres), combined with moves to better
integrate the remaining refugee population in local Thai-
Karen villages; secondly, declining funding due to ‘donor
fatigue’, which is exacerbated by the global financial crisis;
and thirdly, the desire of the Royal Thai Government for
better relations with the Burma government and for great-
Ceremony of DKBA unit transformation into BGF
Karen Politics in a Time of Change
er security for investments, such as roads and dams, along
the border. In particular, the construction of hydroelectric
dams on the Salween River will disrupt cross-border sup-
ply to northern Karen State, further weakening the KNU
but not the DKBA, which is regarded as supporting these
projects. The Dawei Development Project in the Tenas-
serim Region is likely to have a similar impact on the KNU.
In the case of this and other mega-development projects,
Karen social and political organisations are challenged to
demonstrate their relevance in a rapidly changing political
and economic environment.
Borderland marginalisation for the KNU relates to another
important challenge. As the KNU has lost territory over the
years, the organisation has lost touch with the majority of
the Karen population in Burma. Although it retains a fol-
lowing among those populations in the hills to which it still
has access, many other Karens feel alienated or margina-
lised and distant from the KNU, especially non-Christians.
This is the single greatest challenge facing any pan-Karen
political organisation: to connect with both Sgaw and Pwo
speaking, Christian and non-Christian (particularly Bud-
dhist) communities. Large numbers of Pwo-speaking Bud-
dhists regard themselves as Karens and, as the 2010 election
demonstrated, will support a Karen political organisation.
They generally distrust the government (and respect Aung
San Suu Kyi), but do not feel represented by the KNU. As
a result, many Buddhists have supported the DKBA, but
over the years most feel disappointed by the outcome of its
political-military enterprise.
At the KNU’s October 2008 14th Congress, a group of
reform-minded leaders tried to persuade their colleagues
41
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

of the need to substantially reform the organisation, adopt

A Commission of Inquiry?
more accountable procedures and review key policy posi-
tions. Instead, hardliners within the KNU prevailed, backed
With the organisation in crisis in the border areas, KNU
by exile Burmese groups who have a strong interest in pro-
leaders have looked to the international community
longing the armed conflict in Burma. This outcome was a
to solve their and Burma’s problems. Perhaps overly-
reflection of the infighting and uncertainties over strate-
reliant on the rhetoric of exile Burmese politicians and
gies that have undermined the KNU’s coherence since the
their support networks, those leaders remaining with-
1990s. But for these reformers within the KNU, this was
in the KNU have supported calls to hold the Burmese
perhaps the organisation’s last chance to embrace reform at
military government accountable to international legal
a meaningful time.
standards.

Significant differences also exist between the ‘Mae Sot

The UN Human Rights Council and its predecessor have
KNU’ (a critical moniker, designating the Thailand-based
appointed a series of Special Rapporteurs for Burma,
senior leadership) and KNU - especially KNLA - forma-
whom the government has often denied access to the
tions inside Kawthoolei. In particular, in recent years ten-
country. In addition, the UN Secretary-General has ap-
sions have emerged between the KNU/KNLA Third and
pointed a series of Special Representatives and Advisers,
Fifth Brigades in the north (and also Fourth Brigade in
tasked with promoting reconciliation between the gov-
Tenasserim Region in the south) and the central leader-
ernment and opposition parties and ethnic groups. The
ship. Instead of reforming at the 14th Congress, the KNU
human rights situation in southeast Burma has been one
re-committed itself to an all-or-nothing victory in its
of several serious concerns raised by these envoys.111
battle against the military government under the leader-
ship of veteran guerrilla commander, Lt-Gen. Tamlah Baw.
There has also been considerable pressure from interna-
However, as national and regional geo-politics continue to
tional human rights organizations, exiled opposition and
change around the KNU, the organisation’s future looks in-
activist groups for some form of UN-mandated Com-
creasingly precarious.
mission of Inquiry into alleged crimes against humanity
and war crimes in Burma. The current Special Rappor-
There is a warning here from history. As long as there were
teur has raised this possibility in a recent report112, and
Hmong refugee camps in Thailand, the Hmong ethnic in-
the possibility has been endorsed or supported by two
surgency in Laos could continue, using the camps as fall-
of his predecessors and by a number of Western states.
back bases. However with the closure of the last Laos-origin
At the time of writing, it is unclear whether any Com-
refugee camps along the northern border in the 1990s, the
mission if Inquiry will be established.113 Calls for such
Hmong insurgency was reduced to a few rag-tag guerrilla
a body, however, can have an impact on the ground,
bands that pose no threat to the Lao government but, con-
especially in terms of humanitarian access to southeast
versely, did serve as a pretext for the continued militarisa-
Burma. Civilian and military authorities are likely to be
tion of remote, ethnic minority-populated areas.
very sensitive to the UN or other international agencies
expanding access into precisely those areas where it is
Despite such disappointments and portents of KNU fail-
alleged that international crimes have taken place. There
ure, the Karen population in Burma still could be mobi-
is also likely to be controversy over who would be the
lised to achieve certain socio-political goals. In the 21st
subject of such an inquiry - i.e. would it focus on abuses
century, the Karen cause will not only depend on the KNU.
by armed opposition as well as government forces?
Large numbers of Karen people living beyond the hills (e.g.
in central Karen State, Yangon and the Irrawaddy Delta)
have had little contact with the KNU for many years. Many
of these communities nevertheless retain a strong Karen The Border Guard Forces and their
identity. As the 2010 general election showed, other Karen Discontents
networks are emerging that seek to represent the Karen
cause. Indeed, the continuing conflict with the KNU pro- To date, the transformation of ceasefire groups into Bor-
vides the government with a pretext for militarisation and der Guard Forces has not proceeded smoothly, neither in
repression, further constraining the ability of Karen com- Karen State nor in the rest of Burma.107 In June and again
munities to undertake development activities and mobilise in October 2009 the KNU/KNLA Peace Council, under
politically in government-controlled areas where the great the leadership of the former KNLA Seventh Brigade com-
majority of Karen people live. mander Brig-Gen Htein Maung, refused the SPDC order
to reform into a Tatmadaw-controlled BGF. Peace Council
The challenge thus remains how the legacies of armed leaders feared that this refusal might earn the wrath of the
struggle, and the mostly elusive quest for unity among the military government and expose them to future vulner-
Karen peoples, will be resolved in the cause of achieving ability. Nevertheless they took the risk. Relations with the
peace, justice and equitable representation in the modern Tatmadaw then deteriorated further in December 2010,
state of Burma. when six Peace Council soldiers were killed by government

42

soldiers.108 However in early 2011 the KNU/KNLA Peace
Council continued to control about a dozen villages along
the Moei River as well as its headquarters areas at To Kaw
Ko, southeast of Hpa’an.109
In contrast, on 23 August 2010 another Karen ceasefire
group, the KPF was quietly transformed into a BGF militia
under direct Tatmadaw control.110 At this time the ailing
Thu Mu Hae retired, following the stipulation that BGF
personnel be under fifty years old. Like the DKBA BGFs ,
some KPF leaders also participated in the 2010 elections.
The greatest volatility, however, occurred within the
DKBA, where many troops were unhappy about the BGF
orders. This discontent burst into the open on election day,
7 November, when the strategic border town of Myawaddy
in central Karen State was occupied by elements of the
DKBA114 led by Col. La Pwe (N’kam Mweh: ‘Mr Mous-
tache’), a field commander who was dissatisfied with the
limited political and economic opportunities available in
the new political environment in Burma.115 Sometimes
referred to as DKBA Brigade 5, this militia preferred the
designation ‘Kloh Htoo Baw’ (or ‘Golden-Yellow Drum’).
Reliable sources estimated the strength of N’Kam Mweh’s
soldiers at over 500 men.
The following day, 8 November, other non-BGF DKBA
battalions occupied the small town of Three Pagodas Pass
in southern Karen State.116 In both places, several people
were killed, and state property was damaged. As a result,
some 20,000 refugees fled to Thailand from Myawaddy and
surrounding areas. About 3,000 refugees fled from Three
Pagodas Pass to Thailand, with a similar or greater number
moving into the adjacent NMSP-controlled ceasefire zone.
On 11 November the Tatmadaw overran N’kam Mweh’s
IDP camp in Karen State (HvdB)
Karen Politics in a Time of Change
base camp at Waley in central Karen State, displacing more
people into Thailand and forcing others into hiding in the
borderlands. These episodes of forced migration constitut-
ed the largest movement of refugees into Thailand in a de-
cade.117 The outbreak of hostilities between the Tatmadaw
and elements of the DKBA was particularly devastating for
villages which had enjoyed relative stability in recent years
(for example, near Three Pagodas Pass and in the Waley
area).
Following clashes with the Tatmadaw, on 9 November the
renegade DKBA force withdrew from Myawaddy. A week
later, a small ceremony was held in southern Karen State,
in which N’Kam Mweh’s renegade DKBA forces formally
allied with the KNLA. The situation at nearby Three Pa-
godas Pass was more confusing, with control of the town
changing hands at least once during the week, before gov-
ernment forces reasserted control.
Once the Tatmadaw had regained control of Myawaddy,
the Thai authorities began to repatriate refugees - in some
cases, against their will. Many refugees from Three Pago-
das Pass in the Sangkhlaburi area returned home, only to
flee back to Thailand later, when fighting broke out again.
Further north, in the area around Myawaddy, refugees
and IDPs remained in an uncertain situation in the area
between Waley and Phop Phra in Thailand. Human rights
and relief organisations working on the border reported
numerous instances of Thai soldiers pushing Karen refu-
gees from this area back across the border.118 In part, such
responses by the Thai authorities illustrate the anger felt by
many business and security personnel in Thailand, whose
investments in southeast Burma appear threatened by such
episodes of insecurity. Indeed, KNLA sources report that
Thai business and security interests were extremely frus-
43
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
trated with Col. N’Kam Mweh’s actions, and have repeated-
ly told the KNU that while fighting inside Burma is accept-
able, armed conflict should not flare up along the border.
As a result of KNU and DKBA tensions in the border areas,
the lucrative trade gate between Myawaddy and Mae Sot
was closed in early 2010, costing local Thai and Burmese
businesspeople millions of dollars a week.
Senior KNLA sources indicate that the emergence of wide-
spread dissatisfaction within the DKBA ranks is a mixed
blessing for the KNU. There are concerns that Col. N’Kam
Mweh may be ‘playing’ the KNU, in order to leverage the
government. According to this argument, N’Kam Mweh
is jealous of his rival commander in the DKBA, Chit Thu,
and may have launched the attack on Myawaddy in order
to demonstrate his power to the government, with the aim
of getting a better deal out of eventually transforming his
battalions into BGF units. Reportedly, the DKBA’s patron
monk, U Thuzana, visited N’Kam Mweh to request him to
join the BGF.119 In a similar vein, senior KNLA informants
indicate that they have requested large numbers of dissat-
isfied rank-and-file DKBA personnel not to defect to the
KNLA in 2010, because they are worried that these troops
are very undisciplined and that their behaviour may not
reflect well on the KNU.
These developments were a reminder that the KNU and its
new ‘DKBA’ allies could still play important roles as ‘spoil-
ers’, undermining stability in the border areas. They were
also testimony to widespread frustration regarding the lack
of political progress in Burma among (but not limited to)
ethnic minority communities.
By November 2010 several hundred ex-DKBA person-
nel and their family members had defected to the KNU/
KNLA, taking refuge in Mae La and Umpien Mai refugee
camps. Many more DKBA troops were reportedly frustrat-
ed at having been transformed into BGF units. Incidents
were reported of Karen BGF soldiers tearing off their mili-
tary patches and protesting loudly. Following the incidents
in early November in Myawaddy and Three Pagodas Pass,
local Tatmadaw commanders reportedly allowed DKBA
chiefs (and particularly Col. Chit Thu) to resume greater
authority in the day-to-day running of the BGF battalions.
Nevertheless, a group of about 70 DKBA ex-999 Special
Battalion soldiers in the area of the old KNU headquarters
at Manerplaw were also reportedly unhappy with the BGF
transformation, and in December 2010 were threatening
to defect to the KNU. Such sentiments were exacerbated
when Karen flags were taken down at former DKBA bases,
such as Shwe Ko Ko, and replaced by the new Myanmar
national flag.
In the middle-to-long-term, the brief occupation of
Myawaddy and Three Pagodas Pass was probably not very
significant. Border-based insurgency has been in decline
for some years, with most armed ethnic groups margina-
lised in relation to major developments in the country.
44
Nevertheless, insurgency in Burma may be prolonged a
while longer, if the KIO, NMSP and other non-BGF cease-
fire groups join forces with the KNU and remaining insur-
gent groups.
As frustration over the BGF order and the 2010 elections
grew, a new military and political alliance emerged between
the KNU and a range of other armed ethnic groups. In No-
vember 2010 a Committee for the Emergence of a Federal
Union was established, which was succeeded in February
2011 by the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC).
The 12 UNFC member organisations included the KNU
and several smaller ethnic insurgent organisations, plus
three ceasefire groups: the KIO, NMSP and Shan State
Progress Party/Shan State Army-North (SSPP/SSA). The
new alliance was dominated by military commanders, as
symbolised by the appointment of KNLA Commander-in
Chief Mutu Saepaw as UNFC Chairman; NMSP General
Secretary, Nai Hongsa was named General Secretary, de-
monstrating that some key ceasefire group leaders wished
to send a strong signal of discontent to the government.
The establishment of the UNFC alliance represented an
important symbolic development, publicly confirming the
behind-the-scenes relationships which had always existed
between Burma’s ethnic ceasefire and non-ceasefire groups.
It also illustrated a degree of confusion regarding the com-
plex plethora of opposition alliances within which armed
ethnic groups such as the KNU are embedded (including
the NDF, ENC and NCUB). Although the degrees of as-
sistance these groups could lend each other was necessarily
limited, due to their territorial fragmentation, the new alli-
ance indicated that militarisation remained a fact of life in
many ethnic minority-populated areas. This was especially
the case in the context of an upsurge of Burma Army ac-
tivities directed against the KNU and non-BGF compliant
DKBA units during the 2010-11 dry season.
Ultimately, the new alliance differed little in make-up to
the NDF joint front of armed ethnic groups, which had
failed to achieve its objectives and had broken up under
pressure from the Tatmadaw in the 1990s. Given that the
NMSP and KIO were unlikely to initiate armed conflict
against government forces, the significance of the UNFC
was therefore primarily symbolic. Furthermore, two key
armed ethnic groups, the (ceasefire) UWSA and (non-
ceasefire) Shan State Army-South were not represented in
the new alliance.
In the meantime, the latest bout of fighting along the Thai-
land border was largely directed against the breakaway
DKBA faction and adjacent KNLA units, with the situation
in most KNU areas further inside the country reportedly
fairly stable (as of late February 2011). These clashes along
the border led to large numbers of civilians being dis-
placed, many of whom sought refuge in Thailand, resulting
in several incidents of forced repatriation by the Royal Thai
Army between December 2010 and February 2011.
 Karen Politics in a Time of Change

Future Prospects
The Aung San Suu Kyi Factor
As new national and regional/state governments form dur-
For many people in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi is an in-
ing the first quarter of 2011, Karen politics - like national
spiring symbol of hope. Following her latest release from
politics - are undergoing their most uncertain cycle in two
house arrest, just five days after the November elections,
decades. Previous eras of governmental change in Bur-
she began to mobilise her supporters.
ma have been followed by volatility, and recent events in
Karen-populated areas prefigure significant but uncertain
Relationships between ‘the lady’ and the government
changes in the coming year. In this context, any predictions
could become confrontational, quite quickly. In this
have to be made with caution.
case, the military is unlikely to allow even semi-inde-
pendent voices in the elected assemblies to have much
In exchange for incorporation of their units into the BGF,
autonomy. Leaders of some ethnic nationality parties
most DKBA leaders are likely to expand their economic in-
have already indicated their willingness to work with
terests in Karen State. These include various logging, mining
Aung San Suu Kyi, and even follow her leadership. If
and, reportedly, illicit yaba drug trafficking activities. For
such alliances coalesce, this could lead to a new phase of
its part, the new military-backed government is planning
zero-sum political conflict in Burma.
to build further economically and militarily strategic roads
and other facilities in the border areas, together with a series
In one of her most significant - and controversial - state-
of ‘special economic zones’, where manufacturing and oth-
ments since her release, Aung San Suu Kyi endorsed
er industries will be based. Local powerholders, including
the possibility of re-visiting one of the foundational
DKBA BGF commanders, are likely to be involved, if they
documents of Burma’s independence: the Panglong
continue to follow government instructions. Beyond the
agreement of 12 February 1947, under which leaders of
economic sphere, it remains uncertain whether the DKBA
some ethnic nationality communities (although not the
BGF will be able to articulate a version of Karen ethnic na-
Karen) agreed to join the Union of Burma. In line with a
tionalism, nor is it clear how much day-to-day control over
declaration produced before the election at Kale in Chin
their soldiers ex-DKBA commanders will enjoy. Rank-and-
State, she joined a number of ethnic nationality lead-
file soldiers may continue to defect from the DKBA, either
ers in calling for a ‘second Panglong conference’ to re-
to join the KNU/KNLA or to go back to their villages.121
negotiate the relationship between the central state and
Similar questions remain regarding the status and disposi-
Burma’s diverse ethnic nationalities.120 Calls for a ‘new
tion of the KPF BGF and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council,
Panglong’ symbolise the widespread dissatisfaction with
with the latter in particular having a very fragile relation-
Burma’s current political settlement felt by many ethnic
ship with the government following its refusal to become a
nationality communities. However, such ‘politics of the
BGF unit.
grand plan’ remain stuck in the 20th-century, and dem-
onstrate little in the way of the pragmatism and strategic
Conversely, the transformation of most DKBA units into
flexibility.
BGF battalions has in some ways been helpful to the KNU,
bolstering its position as the sole independent Karen
Meanwhile, some local NGO and CBO actors in Burma
armed group. However, the organisation remains in deep
are concerned that Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters
crisis. By 2011, the KNU’s areas of control had been re-
may turn to activism in the civil society sector, follow-
duced to a substantial patch of territory in the hills north
ing the political de-registration of the NLD, as a result
of Papun (KNLA Third and Fifth Brigades), plus a few
of it not contesting the 2010 election. They are worried
enclaves along the Salween River (constituting Thailand-
that, if the NLD branches out into social work, this may
Burma border) and some forest bases in southern Karen
politicise the civil society sector, inviting unwanted at-
State and Tenasserim Region (KNLA Six and Fourth Bri-
tention from the state authorities and possibly under-
gades: see Map 3). Due to its lack of territorial control, the
mining existing relief and development activities.
KNU has only limited access to revenues from logging and
taxing the black market trade. Short of money, it thus lacks
ammunition and influence within the Thai security estab-
Despite such developments, the long-term prognosis for lishment, and its ability to resist Tatmadaw offensives is in
insurgency in the borderlands remained one of decline, decline.
especially given the unlikelihood of Thai (or further to
the north, Chinese) support for the resumption of large- Politically, the KNU also faces numerous challenges. In
scale armed conflict in Burma. Southeast Burma remains many areas, the organisation (and particularly the KNLA)
characterised by a complex patchwork of different military, is characterised by ‘neo-patrimonial’ practices, or outright
political and community-based organisations, reflecting warlordism. Often, the distinction between KNU finances
continuing state-society tensions. The humanitarian and and those of individual leaders and their families is blurred,
livelihoods situation for Karen and other civilians living in with some clans making a good living out of the tail-end of
these areas remains dire. armed conflict in the border areas.

45
 Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
Notwithstanding this problem of corruption and the in-
stitutionalisation of insurgency, many of those remaining
in the front-line of ‘the revolution’ are deeply committed
to the struggle for self-determination in Burma, demon-
strating levels of social and political solidarity not appar-
ent within the DKBA. However, many senior leaders are
ageing and infirm, with some of the most talented cadres
having left the organisation during the past two decades, in
many cases to start new lives as refugees in third countries,
particularly the USA. Many of those who remain can be
characterised as ‘hardliners’, who mainly live in Thailand
and are more interested in demonstrating their revolution-
ary credentials than in finding practical solutions to the di-
verse problems of the Karen communities in Burma. This
lack of political imagination within the KNU leadership is
demonstrated by its continued alliance with a range of bor-
der-and exile-based opposition groups, most of which have
grown out of touch with the situation in Burma and have
limited understanding of issues facing the Karen people.
In terms of continued relevance, the biggest challenge fac-
ing the KNU is how to reach out to the wider Karen com-
munities. It is no coincidence that the last few KNU strong-
holds are mostly populated by Christians and animists. If
it is to remain relevant to the majority of Karen people, the
organisation needs to find ways of engaging with Buddhist
and Pwo-speaking communities. It also needs to reconnect
with Karen communities in Yangon, the Irrawaddy Delta
and other parts of lower Burma, where a majority of Ka-
rens live.
At the same time, the persistence of insurgency in southeast
Burma demonstrates the long-standing existence of wide-
spread dissatisfaction among minority communities. It is
Karen couple in Irrawaddy Delta in temporary house after Cyclone Nargis (TK)
46
not only Karens, but Mons, Shans and other ethnic groups
that have resisted Sen-Gen. Than Shwe’s state-building
goals. Despite these frustrations, it is difficult to see how
the KNU can regain a leading role on the political stage,
unless there is a major change in politics at the national
level – a transformation over which the armed Karen na-
tionalist movement is likely to have little influence. Mean-
while, the KNU is likely to hang on along the Thailand
border for some years to come. It is arguable that the per-
sistence of low-level insurgency in the Karen hills is wel-
comed by at least some Tatmadaw commanders, providing
a pretext for continued militarisation of the borderlands.
As Duffield has noted,122 Tatmadaw strategists are experts
at crisis management (i.e. rule by emergency decree and
the politics of punitive brinkmanship). They may therefore
prefer to maintain a degree of instability and chaos in the
borderlands. Ironically, therefore, Tatmadaw and KNU/
KNLA leaders may have a mutual interest in maintaining
the conditions of conflict.
Nevertheless, one of the biggest threats facing the KNU
and its allies is the prospect of a major Tatmadaw offen-
sive. If the government launches such an operation, it will
depend largely on domestic political calculations, and
whether Than Shwe and other Tatmadaw commanders are
committed to crushing the remnant KNU and disciplining
non-BGF forces. While an all-out offensive may not com-
pletely destroy the KNLA as a guerrilla army, it would fur-
ther undermine the KNU’s standing, causing further suf-
fering to civilian populations and forcing more people into
internal displacement or across the border into Thailand
as refugees. At the time of writing, in February 2011, some
KNU leaders were predicting a major offensive against
their organisation following the convening of Burma’s new

parliaments, while others expected Tatmadaw military op-
erations to be restricted to a few strategically important
border areas.
Meanwhile, the existence of refugee camps along the Thai-
land border continues to facilitate the KNU’s ability to
wage war in Burma. The camps provide a refuge for KNU
personnel and their families, legitimisation and some ma-
terial support to the KNLA’s armed struggle.123 Developing
such ideas, Alan Kuperman124 warns of the consequences
of “offering rhetorical and military support for armed se-
cessionists and revolutionaries in the name of fighting op-
pression and human rights … [which may be] well intend-
ed [but] often backfires by emboldening rebels.” He uses
the notion of ‘moral hazard’ (derived from economics) to
describe the manner in which the prospect of humanitar-
ian, military or political interventions by the international
community may embolden insurgents, thus underwriting
armed conflict.125 It is however debatable whether the neg-
ative consequences of providing assistance are outweighed
by the immediate need to help the victims of civil war in
Burma. Border-based humanitarian donors and organi-
sations may nevertheless be in violation of the ‘Do No
Harm’ doctrine,126 according to which aid agencies should
ensure that their interventions do not inadvertently harm
intended beneficiaries by contributing to the continuance
of Burma’s protracted armed conflicts.
If the future of the KNU’s state/nation-building project is
no longer viable, what are the alternatives? Over the past
decade, the DKBA has assumed a position of dominance
in many Karen-populated areas, similar to that previously
occupied by the KNU. The important difference is that
the DKBA shores up its limited sovereignty through pay-
ing actual and symbolic tribute to military government,
while the KNU looks to the international community as
a primary source of legitimacy. However, it seems un-
likely the government will allow the DKBA BGF to con-
solidate its power. The most likely scenario in the short
to middle-term in conflict-affected areas of Karen State
is one of continued fragmentation. The outlook for civil-
ians living in Karen areas therefore remains bleak. Further
humanitarian crises can be expected, at least until a po-
litical settlement is reached, which at present is a remote
prospect.
After more than six decades of armed conflict, it seems un-
likely that armed conflict can bring about positive change
in Karen-populated areas. The most likely long-term result
of continued fighting in the borderlands is that the Tat-
madaw will ultimately defeat the KNU and allied armed
groups, completing its domination and militarisation of
previously semi-autonomous areas. Until this happens,
the KNU will continue for some years to be able to launch
guerrilla attacks. Given this impasse, it is important that
Karen armed groups seek mutual understanding starting
at local levels, if they are to remain representative voices.
Rather than any one organisation seeking to dominate this
Karen Politics in a Time of Change
diverse community, Karen political leaders should consid-
er forming coalitions of common interest and intra-com-
munity cooperation (consociational democracy).127 This
approach is likely to be more flexible than the ‘politics of
the grand plan’, which continues to characterise most op-
position groups in Burma. Rather than seeking ambitious
‘blueprint’ solutions to the country’s complex problems,
political and community leaders should perhaps adopt a
more pragmatic approach, adapting their strategies to spe-
cific contexts and problems.
In this context, it is worth asking whether the November
2010 election will introduce a new system of governance
in southeast Burma that involves a gradual transition away
from militarised rule. For the time being, the operating
space available to the small number of independent can-
didates elected is limited and will, in the future, depend
in large part on the will of Sen. Gen. Than Shwe and other
senior military officials. The degree to which they are will-
ing to tolerate some independent political space in Karen
and other ethnic nationality-populated areas will depend,
in turn, on whether the military can continue to control
the domestic political agenda, including pro-democracy
groups symbolised by Aung San Suu Kyi.
In a best case scenario, the Ploung-Sgaw Democracy Party
(PSDP) in Karen State, and the Karen Peoples Party (KPP)
elsewhere, may have some influence on areas of local pol-
icy and be able to participate in social welfare.128 This may
allow independent Karen voices some influence over the
formulation of humanitarian and development policies af-
fecting their communities.
Although modest, such achievements could be important
in consolidating and strengthening a burgeoning civil so-
ciety sector. Although civil society actors can also become
patrons themselves in the game of power-politics, local
associations and leaders can nevertheless play important
roles in establishing the beginnings of a system of account-
ability in certain conditions and localities. Such local de-
velopment activities help to promote “social capital”,129 lo-
cal resilience, and networks of trust and mutual support,
providing limited amounts of protection to hard-pressed
civilian populations.130
Ultimately, however, in the age of globalisation, more in-
fluential than the civil society and aid sectors will be the
role of capital, and business more generally. Indeed, the
prospect of major infrastructure and other economic proj-
ects in southeast Burma will radically alter the social and
political context, raising new challenges to Karen and other
ethnic nationality leaders to demonstrate their continued
relevance in this fast-changing region. For the present, the
inclusion of Karen interests, whether individual or institu-
tional, in national politics and economics remains limited
and constrained. Until this is addressed, a new generation
of Karen grievances and state resistance cannot be ruled
out.
47
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Conclusions

Most accounts of politics, armed conflict and humanitari-

an conditions in southeast Burma derive from the perspec-
tive of anti-government groups and affiliated organisations
working in the borderlands. Although this ‘selection bias’
does not invalidate existing literatures, it does mean that
much less is known about civilian populations, non-KNU
armed groups, and political and civil society organisations
operating inside Burma, beyond the insurgent sphere of
influence.131

This distortion is of more than academic relevance, as

the policies of key external stakeholders (e.g. humanitar-
ian donors and Western governments) are structured by
the limitations of knowledge, and ultimately reflect the
presumed legitimacy of particular local actors. If politi-
cal, economic, social and humanitarian analyses and ac-
tion are to be grounded in well-informed understandings,
then researchers and policymakers must do more to ensure
that their work covers the full range of Karen stakehold-
ers. Studies should not be limited to a recurring, but small,
cast of actors and stakeholders along the Thailand-Burma
border.

Various armed groups position themselves as defenders of

Karen populations, in terms of providing physical safety,
securing livelihoods and protecting Karen culture and na-
tional identity. Both KNU and (ex-)DKBA leaders regard
themselves as legitimate representatives and guardians of
the Karen peoples. Ultimately, assessments of their posi-
tions as protection and political actors will depend on the
legitimacy accorded to these groups by different Karen, na-
tional and international audiences.132

For many Karen nationalists (particularly Christians), the

KNU remains the sole legitimate Karen political organisa-
tion. As such, they have long sought to establish the KNU’s
dominance over the Karen nationalist movement. At the
same time, although many observers may find them unpal-
atable, it is essential that assessments of the Karen conflict
also take account of non-liberal Karen actors, such as the
DKBA BGF who remain important local power-holders.133

Those seeking to develop relationships with stakeholders

in the broader Karen society should also consider engaging
with civilian politicians elected in November 2010. Due to
the entrenched rhetoric of exiled Burmese politicians and
their support networks, and the Burmese military’s politi-
cal sensitivities, developing supportive relations with civil-
ian politicians will require careful negotiations and posi-
tioning. Such forms of engagement may however be more
palatable to Western sensibilities than engaging with the
DKBA and its successors. Talking to, and helping to de-
velop the capacities of, a wide range of Karen and other
ethnic nationality stakeholders will be particularly im-
portant in the fast-changing context of southeast Burma,
where planned infrastructure and economic development
projects are likely to radically alter social and economic re-
alities in the coming years.

48

Footnotes
1 ‘Insurgency’ is used to mean guerrilla warfare, in support
of a political goal: Thomas Marks, Ideology of Insurgency: new
ethnic focus or old cold war distortions?, in ‘Small Wars and In-
surgencies’ (Vol.15, No.1 Spring 2004).
2 New/Official Name Traditional/Former Name
Ayeyarwady Irrawaddy
Bago Pegu
Dawei Tavoy
Hpa’an Paan
Mawlamyine Moulmein
Myeik Mergui
Pathein Bassein
Tanintharyi Tenasserim
Taungoo Toungoo
Yangon Rangoon
3 David Keen, Complex Emergencies (Cambridge, Polity
Press 2008: ch.4) analyses elites’ efforts to mobilise communities,
by appealing to notions of ethnicity - often in the process further-
ing their own economic and political interests.
4 Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Eth-
nicity (Zed Books; second edition, London 1999: 45).
5 Ibid. 61.
6 ‘The Irrawaddy’ (March 2009). These figures are confirmed
privately by senior KNLA commanders.
7 Government of Burma, Burma 1983 Population Census
(Rangoon, Central Administration Department 1986).
8 Martin Smith, ‘Burma: the Karen conflict’, in Joseph Rudolph
Jr. (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts (Greenwood
Press, London and Connecticut 2003: 10-11).
9 Karen National Union, ‘The struggle of KNU for justice’, in
KNU Bulletin (Manerplaw, November 1986, No.7).
10 E.g. Benedict Rogers, A Land Without Evil (London, Mon-
arch Books/Christian Solidarity Worldwide 2004).
11 Mikael Gravers (ed.), Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma
(NIAS Press 2007).
12 It is necessary to distinguish between Bengali Muslim com-
munities living in Karen-populated areas, and a small number of
‘Black Karen’ Muslim groups, who identify themselves as ethnic
Karens.
13 Kaw-thoo-lei may be variously translated as ‘the land
burned black’ (by ‘slash-and-burn’ farming, or by warfare), ‘the
pure land’, ‘the old land’ or ‘the land of the thoo lei plant’. In 1947,
when the term was invented, Kawthoolei did not refer to a specif-
ic geographic area, but rather to a ‘symbolic space’ (Gravers 2007:
245).
14 In addition, the KNLA deploys a number of Special Bat-
talions, based in economically important border areas, whose
troops tend to be personally loyal to local commanders.
15 The Tatmadaw assumed control of the state in a March 1962
coup d’état, led by General Ne Win.
16 Amnesty International, Myanmar: Lack of Security in
Counter-Insurgency Areas (July 2002); Karen Human Rights
Group, Self Protection under Strain: targeting of civilians and lo-
cal responses in northern Karen State (August 2010).
17 Smith (1999: 259).
18 Maung Aung Myoe, Building the Tatmadaw: Myanmar
armed forces since 1948 (Singapore, ISEAS 2009).
19 Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Listening to Voices
from Inside: Myanmar civil society’s response to Cyclone Nargis
Footnotes
(Phnom Penh, 2009); Justin Corbett, ALNAP Case Study No. 4:
Supporting Community-Based Emergency Response at Scale: in-
novations in the wake of Cyclone Nargis (2010).
20 For an overview of the ceasefires and associated social and
political issues, see Tom Kramer, Neither War nor Peace: the fu-
ture of the ceasefire agreements in Burma (Amsterdam, Transna-
tional Institute July 2009).
21 In Mark Vincent & Birgitte Refslund Sorensen (eds), Caught
between Borders: response strategies of the internally displaced
(London & Sterling, Virginia; Pluto Press & Norwegian Refugee
Council 2001: 143).
22 According to the International Campaign to Ban Land-
mines, in 2009 landmine incidents increased significantly, mak-
ing Burma one of the worst-affected countries in the world:
Landmine Monitor: 2010 Myanmar/Burma Country Report
(Bangkok, November 2010). For an overview of the way in which
state and non-state armed groups (and also sometimes civilians)
use landmines, see Ashley South, with Malin Perhult and Nils
Carstensen, Conflict and Survival: self-protection in south-east
Myanmar (Chatham House/Royal Institute of International Af-
fairs, September 2010).
23 Ibid.
24 This impression is derived from the author’s 20 years expe-
rience of working on political and human rights issues in Karen
areas: Ashley South, Ethnic Politics in Burma: states of conflict
(Routledge 2008).
25 Alan Saw U, in N. Ganesan & Kyaw Yin Hlaing (eds), Myan-
mar: State, Society and Ethnicity (ISEAS, Singapore 2007: 222).
26 According to David Taw, by the early-1990s, “for the young-
er, middle-level section of the KNU leadership it became clear
that the burden of the conflict had become unbearable for the
Karen population in the conflict area. This group viewed the KIO
[ceasefire] decision sympathetically, feared the consequences
for the Karen of further erosion of the KNU’s military position
and regretted the DAB’s lack of understanding concerning the
need for the ethnic armies to try to end the fighting in their ar-
eas. Meanwhile, reports of SLORC human rights abuses in Karen
areas were being used by the [Burmese opposition-in-exile] to
further undermine and discredit the SLORC and mobilize stron-
ger international responses. However, there were foreign visitors
to the KNU who urged the KNU to consider a strategy of mini-
mizing the impact of SLORC military superiority by entering
a ceasefire and relying on a more political strategy. There were
also Karen leaders from inside Burma who visited the KNU as
self-appointed ‘mediators’, urging the KNU to try to find a way to
end the war. These non-KNU Karen ‘mediators’ were treated as
SLORC stooges and given a very cool reception officially by the
KNU leadership although receiving quiet encouragement from
the pro-ceasefire faction. In 1994 an officially sanctioned KNU
working group - initiated by those responsible for the KNU’s for-
eign relations - won support within the KNU to explore a ne-
gotiation initiative on the basis of the political advantage in be-
ing seen to be willing to ‘talk about talks’. Plans were laid for a
delegation to go to Rangoon in the hope that such an initiative
could win international support. The intention was to mobilize
international pressure for a new approach to the SLORC, recog-
nizing the need to open up some of the political issues (i.e. equal
rights, the right to self-determination and a move leading towards
federalism) for discussion, rather than simply demanding the re-
moval of the SLORC … This move collapsed late in the year when
NCGUB leaders in New York pleaded with the KNU leadership
not to make such a move, which they saw as undermining their
own efforts at the UN to win decisive international action against
the SLORC.” David Taw, Choosing to Engage: strategic consid-
erations for the Karen National Union, in ‘Choosing to Engage:
armed groups peace processes’ (Conciliation Resources/ Accord
Vol.16 2005).
27 The popular desire for an end to the armed conflict was il-
lustrated by a photograph taken in October 2004 in Kawkareik
Township. The picture shows a gathering of over 1000 Karen
villagers in support of KNLA Sixth Brigade Commander, Mutu
49
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
(who became KNLA Commander-in-Chief that December), as
he set off to join the ceasefire delegation. Several people were car-
rying makeshift banners, calling for an “end to the bloody war”
and proclaiming “we want peace in our country.”
28 Since the late 1990s, the NCUB has been dominated by its
General Secretary, Maung Maung, who has close relations with
anti-ceasefire elements within the KNU and other armed groups.
29 In a major policy shift, in 1984 the NDF changed its po-
sition from one of secessionism (i.e. the advocacy of outright
independence) to a demand for substantial autonomy within a
proposed Federal Union of Burma. This was an important change
in emphasis: the military government had always accused the in-
surgents of scheming to wreck the Union. Now though, the ethnic
nationalists were aiming at a democratic, federal transformation
of the union, rather than a total repudiation of the state of Bur-
ma.
30 Kayin is the Burmese exonym for the Karen.
31 According to Gravers (2007: 229), throughout Burma Pwo
Karen communities tend to be disadvantaged compared to the
Sgaw, whom the former generally perceive to be the dominant
sub-group.
32 Myaing Nan Swe (trans. Shin Khay Meinda), Myainggye
Ngu Sayadaw: a Jahan who shines the light of Dhama (Mann Ba
Nyunt Pe, Myaing Gyi Ngu Special Region, Karen State, August
1999) provides a very sympathetic account of the life of U Thu-
zana, with many interesting details regarding the formation of the
DKBA.
33 Amnesty International 2002, KHRG 2010.
34 Ashley South, Burma: The Changing Nature of Displace-
ment Crises (Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University, Work-
ing Paper No.39 2007).
35 A confidential DKBA document states that, in the case of
the Karen BGF units, the maximum age limit is 45 years. For
other BGF formations, the age limit is 50.
36 BGF battalions 1117, 1118, 1119 and 1120.
37 The Thai Ministry of Commerce is reportedly planning
a 189-hectare Special Economic Zone (SEZ), six miles from
Myawaddy: “According to the MOC, border trade in the area ac-
counted for US $606 million in 2008, and it expects that the SEZ,
on which more than 100 warehouses have been constructed for
storage or factory use, would push that figure up to $1.2 billion
annually”: ‘The Irrawaddy’ (August 2010).
38 On human rights abuses and forced displacement in con-
nection with railway and gas pipeline construction in Karen and
Mon populated areas of southeast Burma in the 1990s and since,
see Ashley South, Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma: the
Golden Sheldrake (London, Routledge Curzon 2003: 195-204).
39 Michael Aung-Thwin, Myth and History in the Historiogra-
phy of Early Burma: paradigms, primary sources, and prejudices
(Ohio University Centre for International Studies 1998: 158).
40 In Stein Tonnesson & Hans Antlov (eds), Asian Forms of
the Nation (Curzon 1996: 73-74).
41 Ananda Raja, ‘Nationalism and the Nation-State: the Kar-
en in Burma and Thailand’, in G. Wijeyewardene (ed.), Ethnic
Groups Across Boundaries in Mainland Southeast Asia (Singa-
pore, ISEAS 1996); ‘A “Nation of Intent” in Burma: Karen ethno-
nationalism, nationalism and narrations of nation’, in The Pacific
Review (Vol.15, No.4 2002).
42 For a typography of ceasefire administrations, see Mary
Callahan, Political Authority in Burma’s Ethnic Minority States:
Devolution, Occupation and Coexistence (East-West Center,
Washington, ‘Policy Studies’ No. 21 2007: xiii-xiv), who identi-
fies three “patterns of relationship between the national state and
locally-based, often non-state actors [that] have emerged since
50
1988: near devolution, military occupation, and coexistence”.
43 Paul Collier, Resource Rents, Governance, and Conflict
(Ann Arbor, University of Michigan 2005).
44 Keen (2008): ch.1.
45 A variety of different positions in this debate are collected in
Jake Sherman & Karen Ballentine (eds), The Political Economy of
Armed Conflict: beyond greed and grievance (London, Rienner
2003).
46 Callahan (2007: xiii).
47 Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars:
the merging of development and security (Zed Books, London
2001).
48 Martin Smith, State of Strife: the Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict
in Burma (Policy Studies 36. Washington, DC. East-West Center,
Washington 2007).
49 Smith (1999: 186).
50 In his Ph.D. Literate Networks and the Production of Sgaw
and Pwo Karen Writing in Burma, c.1830-1930 (SOAS, London
University 2005: 198), Will Womack notes that “the international
press (popular and academic), cut off from meaningful contact
inside Burma’s borders, has been concerned primarily with the
largely KNU-oriented Karen diaspora in Thailand, Britain, and
the United States. Yet for many years, the Karen communities in-
side Burma have maintained their identity in the structures of
civil society.”
51 Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, The Karen Revolution in
Burma: diverse voices, uncertain ends (East-West Center, Wash-
ington, ‘Policy Studies No. 45’ 2008: 10).
52 Mary Callahan adopts the ‘inside’/’outside’ dichotomy, to
describe these different modes of operation in regards to Burma.
It should be noted that, particularly when discussing groups
working in the fields of information and advocacy, this framing of
actors is not always helpful. In such contexts, it may be more use-
ful to talk about networks crossing various (official and informal)
borders, with orientations towards nodes of international advo-
cacy, and/or more inclined towards accepting the government: in
Susan Levenstein (ed.), Finding Dollars, Sense, and Legitimacy in
Burma (Washington, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for
Scholars, Asia Programme 2010: 73).
53 Alan Saw U, in Ganesan & Kyaw Yin Hlaing (2007: 219).
54 Ibid. (221).
55 Ibid.
56 South (2008: 185).
57 Gravers (2007: Introduction).
58 Some informants observe that the Taungalae sayadaw is
close to the wife of Sen-Gen. Than Shwe.
59 The term is coined by Mark Duffield (2001: 191).
60 South (2008: 166).
61 Other, semi-dormant, Karen political parties include the
Union Karen League, established by Delta Karen in 1946 (offi-
cially dissolved in September 2010), and the Karen National Con-
gress for Democracy, founded in 1989.
62 Transnational Institute and Burma Centrum Nederland,
A Changing Ethnic Landscape: Analysis of Burma’s 2010 Polls,
Burma Policy Briefing No.4, December 2010.
63 ‘The Irrawaddy’ (27-11-2010).
64 The State PDC chairman, Brig-Gen Zaw Min, was appoint-

ed Kayin State Chief Minister: Euro Burma Office, Political Moni-
tor No.7 (12-18 February 2011).
65 UNDP, UNOPS, Ministry of National Planning and Eco-
nomic Development, Integrated Household and Living Condi-
tions Survey in Myanmar: Millennium Development Goals rel-
evant information (Yangon, June 2007).
66 Cited by Mark Duffield, On the Edge of ‘No Man’s Land’:
Chronic Emergency in Myanmar (independent report commis-
sioned by the Office of the UN RC/HC, Yangon and UNOCHA,
New York; published by Centre for Governance and International
Affairs, University of Bristol, Working Paper No. 01-2008).
67 Ibid.
68 South (2007).
69 TBBC (Program Report: July to December 2009, Bangkok
2010).
70 Ibid.
71 South et al (2010).
72 TBBC (2010). Throughout the 1990s, the KNU-controlled
Karen Refugee Committee continued to administer the camps
with little interference. However, since 2005, the TBBC has en-
deavoured to ensure that camp administrations are more ac-
countable to the refugees.
73 The Royal Thai Government has always indicated that it
would seek to repatriate this population as soon as the situation
in Burma allowed it, and in mid-2010 the Foreign Minister an-
nounced his intention to do so following the elections in Burma.
While a forced or coerced repatriation cannot be ruled out, it is
more likely that any such initiative would proceed in a similar
manner to the repatriation of refugees from Bangladesh to Burma
in the 1990s. That is, the operation may well be problematic in
many respects, but the Burma and Thai governments might fol-
low minimally-acceptable procedures, to allow UN involvement.
74 Fiona Terry, Condemned to Repeat? The paradox of hu-
manitarian action (Ithaca, Cornell 2002: 45-46 & 221-24).
75 Duffield (2001: 253).
76 For an overview of which, see Silvie Caverzasio (ed).,
Strengthening Protection in War: a search for professional stan-
dards (ICRC Geneva 2001).
77 South et al (2010).
78 Since the 1980s, the mandala model has become a standard
trope of Southeast Asian studies. As such, it is ripe for critical re-
evaluation.
79 Oliver Wolters, Culture and Region in Southeast Asian Per-
spectives (Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 1982).
80 In the case of Burma, Mikael Gravers has described how
such patterns persisted in Karen populated areas of southeast
Burma into the colonial era, under the British system of ‘indirect
rule’: Nationalism as Political Paranoia in Burma: an essay on the
historical practice of power (Curzon 1999).
81 Smith (1999: 171-5).
82 James Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist
History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale University Press 2009).
83 Willem van Schendel, ‘Geographies of knowing, geogra-
phies of ignorance: jumping scale in Southeast Asia,’ in Develop-
ment and Planning D: Society and Space (20, 2002: 647–68).
84 KNU (1986: 3-4); this publication also rehearses the suppos-
edly age-old antipathy between the Karen and Burman peoples.
85 KNU, The Karens and Their Struggle for Freedom (Maner-
Footnotes
plaw, July 1992: 13-14); this document, recently re-endorsed by
the Central Executive Committee, provides an overview of the
KNU’s notions of Karen origins and history, and its propaganda
and ideological positions.
86 Ibid.
87 Gravers (2007: 250).
88 South (2008: 109-13).
89 Taw (2005).
90 South et al (2010).
91 On the politics of legitimacy in Burma, see David Steinberg,
Turmoil in Burma: contested legitimacies in Myanmar (Connect-
icut, EastBridge 2007).
92 South (2008: Ch.1).
93 Gravers, in Tonnesson & Antlov (1996: 258).
94 Gustaaf Houtman, Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Poli-
tics: Aung san Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy,
(Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Institute for the Study of
Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Monograph Series 33,
1999).
95 Discussing popular support for the government and/or
KNU, Cussano notes (in Vincent & Sorensen 2001: 168) that
“many displaced Karens are not interested in either side’s claim
to political legitimacy. Speaking their own dialect, managing
their own affairs, surviving in their own domain, highlanders and
forest-dwelling Karens wish, above all, to preserve their indepen-
dence and stay on their land.”
96 Ingrid Jordt, Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Bud-
dhism and the cultural construction of power (Athens, Ohio Uni-
versity Press 2007: 171).
97 Further details of DKBA ideology and instructions to troops
are to be found in its soldiers’ Handbook (Burmese language, no
date)
98 Gravers (2007: 249).
99 Smith (1999: Appendix), Gravers (2007).
100 Martin Smith (1999: Appendix) recounts how the Telecon
attacked a Burma Army outpost in Kyaikto in 1967, after first giv-
ing the garrison there a written warning. As this was not taken
seriously, the Telecon force was able to kill several government
soldiers. However, when the attackers returned, twenty-four were
killed by the Tatmadaw.
101 This incident was blamed on God’s Army, but was in fact
instigated by the shadowy Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors,
whose mainly ethnic Burman members had taken refuge with the
twins and their followers, before taking over the hospital (and ul-
timately being killed by the Thai security forces).
102 South (2008: ch.5).
103 The Peace Council’s Karen Relief and Development Com-
mittee also provided some assistance to the victims of Cyclone
Nargis: KRDC, Rebuilding Our Nation (report, 2010).
104 Karen Human Rights Group, Protection concerns expressed
by civilians amidst conflict in Dooplaya and Pa’an districts (No-
vember 2010).
105 This impression is derived from the author’s 20 years expe-
rience of working on political and human rights issues in Karen
areas (see South 2008, South at al 2010).
106 International human rights and humanitarian law provide
little recognition for the role of non-state armed groups as protec-
tion actors. However, many Karen civilian populations do regard
51
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict
the KNU as an organisation which protects them - although in
other cases, the Karen insurgency is seen as part of the problem.
the KNU and all the armed groups, including the Tatmadaw, have
over the years planted landmines, used child soldiers, demanded
arbitrary taxes and exercised extra-judicial executions and other
punishments (South et al 2010).
107 Transnational Institute and Burma Centrum Nederland,
Ethnic Politics in Burma: The Time for Solutions, Burma Policy
Briefing No.5, February 2011.
108 These casualties were under the command of Nay Soe Mya,
youngest son of the late Gen. Bo Mya, who had defected from the
KNU in March 2009, and unlike Htein Maung wanted to join the
BGF or form a pro-government militia group.
109 The situation of the KNU/KNLA Peace Council was compli-
cated by the fact that one of its founding leaders (Pastor Timothy)
had become dissatisfied with the relationship with the govern-
ment, and in 2010 issued a series of statements from outside the
country, criticising the SPDC, and in particular the BGF transfor-
mation. These inflammatory statements served to raise tensions
between his colleagues back in Burma and the Tatmadaw (see for
example Peace Council statement, 23 August 2010: A Need For
Urgency – threat of armed attack within one week). Along the
border, rumour had it that the Peace Council had in fact signed a
secret BGF agreement with the government in November.
110 Some KPF soldiers preferred to form a local militia (pyi thu
sit), a status which gave them more operational independence
than the BGF. About 10 KPF militiamen were disarmed by the
Tatmadaw following the events of November 2010 (see below).
111 UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights in Myanmar (A/65/368, 15 Septem-
ber 2010).
112 UN General Assembly (Progress report of the Special Rap-
porteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tomás
Ojea Quintana, A/HRC/13/48, 10 March 2010).
113 With China (and probably also Russia) likely to exercise
their vetoes, the UN Security Council is unlikely to endorse a
Commission of Inquiry. The UN Secretary General has indicated
that he would take his lead from member states rather than act-
ing on his own authority in this matter; the General Assembly has
no practice of establishing such commissions other than to look
at internal UN administrative matters; and it is not clear that a
majority of the Human Rights Council would vote in favour of
such a measure.
114 Elements of this non-BGF compliant DKBA brigade, led by
battalion commander Lt-Col. Kyaw Thet, had briefly occupied
parts of Myawaddy, and surrounded the police station, in Sep-
tember.
115 Nukes Mweh was quoted in The Irrawaddy as saying “I am a
DKBA soldier and will fight for my people… if they [the govern-
ment] tell me to give them my weapons and badge, I will never
hand them over” (7 August 2010).
116 At Three Pagodas Pass DKBA units were joined by KNU
troops from KNLA 6 Brigade.
117 KHRG (November 2010).
118 KHRG, More Arrests and Movement Restrictions: conflict
continues to impact civilians in Dooplaya District (30-11-2010).
119 ‘The Irrawaddy’ (19 October 2010).
120 ‘The Irrawaddy’ (22 November 2010).
121 Many in the DKBA have become used to exercising violence
for various purposes, and may find it difficult to re-enter civilian
life.
122 Duffield, (2008).
52
123 As Edward Luttwak notes, the existence of refugee camps
can sustain warrior “nations intact [preserving] their resentments
forever … [as well as] inserting material aid into ongoing conflict
... By intervening to help, NGOs systematically impede the prog-
ress of their enemies towards a decisive victory that could end of
the war”: ‘Give War a Chance’, in Foreign Affairs (Vol.78, No.4,
July/August 1999: 43).
124 Alan Kuperman, The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention:
genocide in Rwanda (Washington DC, Brookings Institution
Press 2001: viii).
125 For example, the KNU’s 1993 decision to not pursue cease-
fire negotiations with the Burmese military government was due
to expectations - strongly promoted by Burmese opposition poli-
ticians in exile - that the international community would support
a strategy of continued armed conflict (Taw 2005).
126 According to the influential ‘Do No Harm’ doctrine, hu-
manitarian agencies should seek to minimise the negative impacts
that can arise from the provision of assistance - for example, the
empowerment of conflict actors or distortion of local markets:
Mary Anderson, Do No Harm: supporting local capacities for
peace through aid (Local Capacities for Peace Project, The Col-
laborative for Development Action, Cambridge 1996).
127 The main elements of consociational democracy are rule by
a ‘grand coalition’ of elites (representing the different segments
of a society), the provision of minority vetoes, proportional rep-
resentation in decision-making and social sectors (and in alloca-
tion of funds and services) and segmental autonomy - or federal-
ism. The basic idea is that, if co-operation and good-will can be
achieved between elites, then ‘unity in diversity’ may be accepted,
and even celebrated: Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societ-
ies: a comparative exploration (Yale UP 1977).
128 In January 2011 the PSDP’s Saw Thein Aung was among the
five presidential and vice-presidential candidates nominated by
the new parliament.
129 Robert Putnam uses the term ‘social capital’ to refer “to fea-
tures of social organisation, such as trust, norms, and networks,
that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coor-
dinated actions”: Making Democracy Work: civic traditions in
modern Italy (Princeton, Princeton University Press 1993: 167).
130 South et al (2010).
131 Recent reports by the TBBC and its partners (e.g. Protracted
Displacement and Chronic Poverty in Eastern Burma/Myanmar,
Bangkok 2010) attempt to redress this imbalance. However, such
research is still carried out by parties closely associated with the
armed conflict.
132 South et al (2010).
133 As Alex de Waal has noted, Western political and humani-
tarian actors tend to assume that conflict-affected countries such
as Burma “ought to resemble European model states” in the ways
that authority and legitimacy are derived. However the reality in
much of Burma today, as the Karen struggle demonstrates, is that
many local power-holders do not subscribe to Western, liberal
democratic ideologies: Protecting Civilians in Fragile States (mss:
Presentation to Oxfam-Novib, The Hague, 21-9-2009).

Abbreviations
AMRDP All Mon Regions Democracy Party
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BGF Border Guard Force
CBO Community Based Organisation
CPB Communist Party of Burma
DAB Democratic Alliance of Burma
DKBA Democratic Karen (Kayin) Buddhist Army
DKBO Democratic Karen (Kayin) Buddhist
Organisation
ENC Ethnic Nationalities Council
GONGO Government-Organised NGO
IDP Internally Displaced Persons
KDC Karen Development Committee
KDN Karen Development Network
KIO Kachin Independence Organisation
KNDO Karen National Defence Organisation
KNLA Karen National Liberation Army
KNU Karen National Union
KPF Karen Peace Force
KPMG Karen Peace Mediator Group
KPP Karen (Kayin) Peoples Party
KSDDP Karen (Kayin) State Democracy and
Development Party
KRC Karen Refugee Committee
NCUB National Council of the Union of Burma
NDF National Democratic Front
NDF National Democracy Force
NLD National League for Democracy
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NMSP New Mon State Party
PSDP Ploung-Sgaw Democracy Party
PVA Peoples Vigorous Association
RTG Royal Thai Government
SLORC State Law and Order Restoration Council
SPDC State Peace and Development Council
SSPP/SSA Shan State Progress Party / Shan State
Army-North
TBBC Thailand Burma Border Consortium
[BBC - Burmese Border Consortium]
UNFC United Nationalities Federal Council
USDA Union Solidarity and Development
Association
USDP Union Solidarity and Development Party
UWSA United Wa State Army
Abbreviations
Other TNI-BCN Publications on Burma
Ethnic Politics in Burma: The Time for Solutions
TNI-BCN Burma Policy Briefing No. 5, February 2011
A Changing Ethnic Landscape:
Analysis of Burma's 2010 Polls
TNI-BCN Burma Policy Briefing No. 4, December
2010
Unlevel Playing Field: Burma’s Election Landscape
TNI-BCN Burma Policy Briefing No. 3, October 2010
Burma’s 2010 Elections:
Challenges and Opportunities
TNI-BCN Burma Policy Briefing No.2, June 2010
Burma in 2010: A Critical Year in Ethnic Politics
TNI-BCN Burma Policy Briefing No.1, June 2010
Strengthening Civil Society in Burma
Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs
Edited by Burma Center Netherlands (BCN) and
Transnational Institute (TNI)
Silkworm Books, Chiangmai, 1999
Other TNI Publications on Burma
Alternative Development or Business as Usual?
China’s Opium Substitution Policy in Burma and
Laos
TNI Drug Policy Briefing No. 33, November 2010
Burma’s Cease-fires at Risk
Consequences of the Kokang Crisis for Peace and
Democracy
Tom Kramer, TNI Peace & Security Briefing Nr 1, Sep-
tember 2009
Neither War nor Peace
The Future of the Cease-fire Agreements in Burma
Tom Kramer, TNI, July 2009
From Golden Triangle to Rubber Belt?
The Future of the Opium Bans in the Kokang and
Wa Regions
Tom Kramer, TNI Drug Policy Briefing No.29, July
2009
Withdrawal Symptoms in the Golden Triangle
A Drugs Market in Disarray
Tom Kramer, Martin Jelsma, Tom Blickman, TNI, Janu-
ary 2009
53
Burma’s Longest War - Anatomy of the Karen Conflict

Political grievances among Karen and other ethnic nationality communities, which have driven over half-a-
century of armed conflict in Burma/Myanmar, remain unresolved. As the country enters a period of transi-
tion following the November 2010 elections and formation of a new government, the Karen political land-
scape is undergoing its most significant changes in a generation.There is a pressing need for Karen social and
political actors to demonstrate their relevance to the new political and economic agendas in Burma, and in
particular to articulate positions regarding the major economic and infrastructure development projects to
be implemented in the coming years.

The country's best-known insurgent organisation, the Karen National Union (KNU), is in crisis, having lost
control of its once extensive 'liberated zones’, and lacks a political agenda relevant to all Karen communities.
Meanwhile the government's demand that ceasefire groups, such as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army,
transform into Border Guard Forces under direct Burma Army control throws into question the future of
various armed groups that have split from the KNU since the 1990s. In this context, Thailand-Burma border
areas have seen an upsurge in fighting since late 2010. Nevertheless, the long-term prospect is one of the
decline of insurgency as a viable political or military strategy.

Equitable solutions to Burma's social, political and economic problems must involve settling long-standing
conflicts between ethnic communities and the state. While Aung San Suu Kyi, the popular leader of the
country's democracy movement, seems to recognise this fact, the military government, which holds most
real power in the country, has sought to suppress and assimilate minority communities. It is yet to be seen
whether Karen and other ethnic nationality representatives elected in November 2010 will be able to find
the political space within which to exercise some influence on local or national politics. In the meantime, civil
society networks operating within and between Karen and other ethnic nationality communities represent
vehicles for positive, incremental change, at least at local levels.

This joint TNI-BCN project aims to stimulate strategic thinking on addressing ethnic conflict in Burma and
to give a voice to ethnic nationality groups who have until now been ignored and isolated in the international
debate on the country. In order to respond to the challenges of 2010 and the future, TNI and BCN believe
it is crucial to formulate practical and concrete policy options and define concrete benchmarks on progress
that national and international actors can support. The project will aim to achieve greater support for a dif-
ferent Burma policy, which is pragmatic, engaged and grounded in reality.

The Transnational Institute (TNI) was founded in 1974 as an independent, international research and policy
advocacy institute, with strong connections to transnational social movements and associated intellectuals
concerned to steer the world in a democratic, equitable, environmentally sustainable and peaceful direction.
Its point of departure is a belief that solutions to global problems require global cooperation.

Burma Center Netherlands (BCN) was founded in 1993. It works towards democratisation and respect for
human rights in Burma. BCN does this through information dissemination, lobby and campaign work, and
the strengthening of Burmese civil society organisations. In recent years the focus has shifted away from
campaigning for economic isolation towards advocacy in support of civil society and a solution to the ethnic
crises in Burma.

54